


Ke Kani O Ke Loli (The Sound of Change)

by Narkito



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Canon-Typical Violence, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mentions of Anxiety, Ohana, Steve McGarrett-Centric, Team as Family, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-14 16:14:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 55,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10540011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narkito/pseuds/Narkito
Summary: Hands grab him from the vest and drag him through ash and soot, a hole where the adjoining wall to the bathroom used to be. His vision swims and the ringing on his ears intensifies. The world takes a dive again and he retches dry. There’s constant ringing that goes up and down in intensity and only a handful of words filter through the haze in his head. Steve's been injured amidst a case that either makes or break careers, and is benched for the foreseeable future. He's edgy, he's frustrated, he's struggling towards physical and emotional recovery. The only easy day was yesterday, he tries to remind himself, though the motto doesn't always apply to civilian life.A story about regaining balance, the power of love, and the subtleness of change. In the end, it's all about ohana.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Art by oh-so-talented _Ms. Three_ , go visit her [tumblr](http://ms-three.tumblr.com/) and her [AO3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/3226629). 
> 
> Also, huge thanks to my beta and friend, [Ilmare-Ilse](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilmare_Ilse/), who held my hand for five months as I wrote this mammoth of a fic and got excited with every single update.
> 
> Dear reader, hope you enjoy!

 [](http://archiveofourown.org/users/3226629)

 

**/01**

The dirt crunches beneath his feet as Danny calls from the other room, “ _clear!_ ” There’s a drop of sweat running down his back and something doesn’t sit right in his gut, but so far, the location has all the signs of being deserted; a comforting layer of dust over every surface and a certain mustiness that permeates the air. It gives a solid sense of neglect.

Steve adjusts the stock of his rifle against his cheek and glances at Danny’s last position clearing one of the main rooms. As if he had read his mind, Danny doubles back into the hallway to Steve, at the bottom of the stairs and taps him twice on the shoulder, keeping his own rifle clear from him.

Steve peels himself off the wall and clears the stairs up to the landing and corner. The second floor is darker than downstairs; the windows are boarded from the inside. Even though they had studied the blueprints, it was apparent the house had undergone some remodelling at some point during its healthy years.

“We need one more on the stairs,” Steve whispers —better safe than sorry— and Danny radios it in right into the team’s feed.

“I’m on it,” comes Chin’s reply.

There’s some shuffling from downstairs and Danny puts his left hand on top of Steve’s shoulder again. His glove brushes Steve’s neck, sticky and hot against the sweat that’s pooled there. Steve’s facing away from Danny, covering the upstairs, and Danny is doing a poor job of protecting himself in order to cover the entrance to the stair case. Yet that's Danny in a nutshell, self-preservation be damned when it comes to Steve.

“Coming in!” Kono makes her presence known from the other end of the hallway and quickly approaches the stairs. As soon as Danny makes eye contact with her, he turns around and points his gun downrange, double tapping Steve over the shoulder. Steve turns on the light attached to his rifle and waits for Kono and Danny to do the same.

“Moving,” he says and resumes the clearing of the stairs and subsequently the upper hallway entrance. There are three doors to the right and two to the left, according to the blueprints, one of them is supposed to be a bathroom. Steve signals for Danny and Kono to go right and rendezvous back at the top of the stairs once their rooms are cleared. Out of the corner of his eye he can make out Danny and Kono forming and advancing into the first room, their shoes making a distinct thumping sound against the floor. Steve advances into the bathroom.

The place is wrecked. There's an outline of broken tiles where the bathtub should have been, ripped from the wall a long time ago. Some areas of the floor and walls are bare to the inner beams, insulation hanging from a lower space like an afterthought. Whoever went through the place did it a long time ago and took everything of value they could find. Last time he checked, selling copper plumbing from an old house could support a medium-sized family for a couple of weeks, so it kind of makes sense.

“Bathroom clear, moving into the hallway.” His words echo back at him in the empty space, adding to the suffocating atmosphere of the place. His ear-piece clicks with static, followed by Kono's voice declaring their room clear too.

Danny's low-level grumbling comes in stereo from the comms and down the hallway, as Steve steps around the corner to the second room, “it's empty for Christ’s sake! Oh, look, more dirt and old newspapers. How— no, _who!_ Who gave us this intel, huh? Kono, quick, apprehend that spider, it looks fishy, like it knows something, _geez!_ ” Kono snickers and he can picture Danny shaking his head in derision at the waste of time, rifle lazy and low on his hands. Steve lets the corner of his lips curl upwards at Danny's crabbiness, he loves the man, but he gets insufferable when he doesn’t have his morning coffee in peace, let alone being dragged out of bed before oh-five-hundred and rushed through a shower and no breakfast; Steve's suggestion that an apple would give him more energy than coffee, providing some sustenance too, had not gone well. He mentally shakes himself back to the here-and-now and peeks into the second room, the door ripped from its hinges and nowhere to be seen.

"Last room," Danny practically sing-songs. His partner’s going to crash sooner rather than later; he should have listened to him about the apple.

Steve takes cover next to the door jamb, scanning the interior of the room one vertical slice at a time. There's a weird smell beneath the mustiness that he can't quite pin down, but he ignores it in favour of studying the couch to the far-left corner. Big furniture can be tricky in a search and seizure situation. Sweat trickles down his back, humidity sticking to his skin. He takes a careful step over a pile of books on the floor and points his flashlight to the couch, there’s nothing there but rattier books and a musty layer of dust. Alarms start going off in his head; something is not right, but what? What did he miss?

“Hey, Danny,” he whispers into his comm, head buzzing with dreadful possibilities. “Be advised—” and then his stomach sinks at the sound of a metallic ping coming from the doorway and his body is already moving before his mind can catch up.

His immediate reaction is to hit the deck, diving alongside the couch, hands laced behind his neck and knees tucked close to his chest. He barely touches the floor when a metaphorical three-hundred-pound rock kicks him on the side. The shockwave of the explosion pins him to the ground and rattles his bones. His mouth clenches against his will and he has the distinct feeling someone just stuck an ice pick to his head. Both his ears ring in flat E.

 

**/02**

There's a disconnect between his brain and mouth, his throat feels raw and he knows he’s screaming. He instinctively rolls to the side and cups his ears with his hands, flickers of burning light dancing in front of his eyes. The entire world rolls on the opposite direction and he spills his guts on the floor and himself. Reality flutters all over. He struggles to keep his eyes open, but it hurts, everything hurts. A blond head swims before his eyes— _Danny_. His stomach flips and he pukes again. Hands are touching him, searching, checking. These are not delicate hands. These hands are distressed, they’re concerned. They have a purpose; like a brutal buzzcut in the middle of the Iraqi summer. He pukes again, and it becomes a yellowish stain on Danny’s trousers.

Danny motions for someone to do something, he figures it must be Kono, and then smoke hits his nostrils so hard, he can’t keep the nausea at bay any longer and gags freely and without restraint.  Hands grab him from the vest and drag him through ash and soot, a hole where the adjoining wall to the bathroom used to be. His vision swims and the ringing on his ears intensifies. The world takes a dive again and he retches dry. They stop dragging him, but he doesn’t know where he is, there’s not enough light, and what little there is only serves to light up the settling dust around them.

Danny forces his hands in between Steve’s own and his ears. Steve doesn’t mean to fight him, but he can’t stop himself, pressing harder on his ears, and when that doesn’t work, swatting him on the chest. Danny is impervious to his struggling and turns Steve’s head one side and then the other, manoeuvring his upper torso on top of Steve, pressing him into the ground.

Steve can see that he’s saying something, but the ringing won’t budge an inch. Danny finally straddles him by the thighs and gets close and personal in front of him, repositioning Steve’s own hands on his ears. The gesture is a soothing one and Steve recognises it as such, allowing his muscles to relax a fraction.

“ _Babe_ ,” Danny mouths. “ _Babe._ ” Steve nods tight in return, a wave of nausea hitting him for his efforts. Danny taps him on the right elbow, pointing to his ear again and then mouths, “ _blood_ ,” making a rude gesture with his hands, and something must have shown on Steve’s face, because Danny’s immediately softens— _goof_ , that fond smile says. Danny meant pierced or injured. Steve nods minutely. He gets the picture. The explosion punctured one of his eardrums.

Chin appears at the edge of his vision carrying something curvy and black on his hands. Danny takes it from him and puts it on Steve’s line of vision. It’s a pair of noise cancelling headphones, the kind they use at the shooting range. He shows him a pack of gauze too, which he rips open and covers both Steve’s ears with it. Very slowly Danny opens the headphones up and slips them into place on Steve’s head. Steve blinks and swallows around the nausea and discomfort. Danny motions with his hand. _Can he walk?_ Yeah, probably. The rest of the way out of the building and into Tripler is a blur of internal roaring and vertigo, the ambulance a veritable shooting star in his mind’s eye.

He couldn’t really walk in the end.

 

**/03**

The nurse keeps grabbing his hands; he knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t help to want and try to remove the headphones, his ears feel stuffy and hurt to the point of screaming, which he swallows around the setting panic on his chest. He’s on his back and his movements are limited by a neck collar and the roaming hands all over his body, not that he thinks he could lift his head more than two inches before the world would tip on its axis again. He’s tried asking for Danny a few times, but no one’s given him a straight answer. He can’t tell if no one knows or if he can’t make sense of what they’re saying; there’s constant ringing that goes up and down in intensity and only a handful of words filter through the haze in his head.

The nurse grabs his hands again and blocks the view of the ceiling with her soft-smile face. She’s saying something. “ _Calm down_ ,” and something else. He thinks she’s calling him “sweetie.” She rubs his hands soothingly and it makes him ache for Danny even more. They had both ridden together to Tripler, but Danny had been whisked away in the opposite direction to be checked as well, and Steve doesn’t know if he was affected by the blast too, or rather _how much_. He seemed fine until they entered the hospital; Danny had stumbled and an EMT had caught him by the elbow and led him to a chair near the registration desk, Steve had lost sight of him after that. He doesn’t think Danny’s badly hurt, but he would much rather _know_.

The light on his eyes comes as a shock that burns him through and through, spiking his headache. A finger he’s meant to follow comes next. The doctor grabs his hands and he’s had enough basic neurological examinations to know what to do about that.

The light goes into his eyes again and then the doctor rounds the gurney and there’s the cold pressure of a metal _something_ being dragged upwards on the sole of his foot, then the other. He grits his teeth and groans in discomfort. There’s a lull on the ringing and a few words make it to his brain, but they don’t make sense at all.

The nurse comes in view again, her lips pucker around the “s”, like his sister’s do when she’s a bit tipsy. Apparently, they’re going to roll him to the side and take his vest off. He's sure she could roll him against his will if he doesn’t cooperate.

The nurse and other people make quick work to loosen the straps of his vest and roll him to the side to slip it off his torso. He ends up with a clear view of the hall, where he spots a man running in his direction, hurriedly putting on a white coat over his combat uniform. There's just enough time to note that the sound of the combat boots slapping the floor is missing, before they put him back on the gurney and his shirt gets cut off.

 

**/04**

They pump him full of fluids and meds after the new arrived doctor checks him out, finally lifting the headphones off his head and tugging at his earlobes to get a clear view inside, sticking an otoscope in there and assessing his ears. Once the good painkillers kick in, the haze in his head grows thicker, but it stops pulsating in pain and his ears feel like they’re attached to his own head again, dialling back to a dull throb every now and then. No word on Danny yet.

 

**/05**

The worst part of being in hospital? The tests. A variety of them to check for internal injury (nothing at all, but there is some oedema in his lungs, which should clear up on its own); a thorough neurological check and CT for traumatic brain injury (no fracture, no swelling, no loss of consciousness; he gets downgraded to a mild concussion); a specialist to check his ears and eardrums (the right one is downright fucked, they won't even know how much until it has stabilised enough to go through an audiometry, but for now it’s pretty clear that if it’s a high-pitched noise or not loud enough, he won’t hear it; the ear canal of the left is swollen and tender, eardrum intact, thankfully).

All in all, he's lucky to be awake and tracking. He figures the IED either was a dud or some sort of miracle aligned itself with him, because he is not showing typical signs of a person who just had a close call with a blast in a confined space. He is not dead, or dying, nor does he have severe internal damage, the list of minor injuries is, however, riddled with abrasions, small contusions and a few burns.

No, scratch that, the worst part of tests this time around, is trying to understand what the results _are_. It takes an orderly and the specialist yelling at him and writing into a dry-erase board until his vision swims in front of him, to get him all caught up. It helps that his specialist knows a bit of combat hand-signals, even if the orderly gives them a funny look. Finally, they had told him he was going to be moved to a room in an hour or so; he needs to stay in observation for the next forty-eight hours, and even though the prospect of it looks daunting, he’s dizzy enough that even he can agree it’s necessary.

He’s flat on his side, finally finding a position in which he can both assuage the vertigo and his bruised ribs when Kono enters the room with a tablet on her hand and a tired frown on her face. She goes to hug him and backs out at the last second, noting how Steve’s shoulders tense. She pats him on the upper arm instead.

“How’s… how’s Danny,” he stammers out, his own voice reverberating like a distorted echo within his head.

Kono turns around to face him completely and gives him a thumb up with her free hand. And then motions for him to wait. She goes around the cubicle and pulls a chair to the gurney’s side, adjusting the tablet on it to face Steve, pulling her phone out and typing into it. A second later, words start to appear on the tablet screen.

“ _He’s good, brah. Asking for you._ ”

His muscles lose all tension and he practically melts into the bed, belatedly amused by Kono taking the time to spell out _brah_.

“What’s taking so long?” Kono gives him a look that he translates as ‘ _it’s a fucking hospital, Steve_ ,’ with extra stress on his name. She starts typing anyway and as she does he can’t help to let his mind wander away; he’s being trying to figure out what happened ever since his head stopped spinning out of control. Kono’s waving hand comes in front of his eyes and his attention goes back to the screen.

“ _They took him for a few tests. HE’S FINE! Plus, he had low blood sugar and it takes a while for the bag to drip… he said it was your fault he missed breakfast and that you owe him_.”

“What else is new,” he mumbles. A yawn escapes him and seeing as his hands are too heavy he has no choice but to treat Kono to the back of his throat. She puts her thumb between her teeth and gives him a tired smile.

Their day had started around four thirty in the morning with a possible breakthrough on their drug-traffic-turned-human-traffic case and, according to the tablet in front of him, it was already nearing four in the afternoon.

“ _How you doing, boss?”_

For a second he’s back at the house, screaming his head off. He shrugs a shoulder, hoping it’s answer enough.

“How you holding up?” He asks in return.

Kono frowns before she starts typing. A word appears and disappears from the tablet screen. The caret stops blinking.

Steve looks up at Kono, but even though she keeps on typing and deleting what she has written, words are not appearing on the screen yet. Her entire demeanour is fierce concentration. She tap-tap-taps into the device, and then finishes with a flourish.

“ _I’m okay, all things considered.”_

Steve’s sure this is something that should be addressed, something Kono’s not saying, but a yawn completely derails his train of thought and in the end, he lets the subject rest in favour of blessed sleep. His final thought before it all fades to black is a mental apology to Kono for leaving her hanging.

 

**/06**

He squeezes the pillow at regular intervals, trying to distract himself after the last wave of nausea. He had woken up when a couple orderlies came to take him from the ER to his room; the worst part of the ride had been the elevator, making him dry-retch a couple of times. A nurse had wiped drool off his chin and helped him into a more comfortable position, leaving him with the call-button within reach and not much else.

His eyes start drooping and he relaxes into the numbing comfort of the painkillers, his whole body melding into the bed. He’s on the verge of falling asleep, his hands barely twitching every now and then, when he feels a distinct presence at the door. It’s a bit of an effort to focus on anything beyond a couple of feet away, but it’s a welcome sight for his sore eyes.

Danny looks as tired as Steve feels. Blond hair falls over his forehead in frizzy curls and there are dark smudges under his eyes that offer grim contrast to the pallor of his face. He's wearing a scrubs t-shirt that belongs to the hospital and Steve's sweats from his go-bag in the car. He cracks a tiny smile at that; a part of him will never stop getting flustered at the sight of Danny wearing his clothes.

Danny eats up the distance between the door and the bedside in a couple of strides. When he kneels next to the bed, Steve does a mental double-take and smiles at the sight; Danny’s also wearing hospital-issued slippahs.

He looks up again. Danny’s eyes go round and watery, and his mouth does the pouty thing Steve associates with an emotionally charged moment, especially if it has to do with Grace.

“Babe, oh, _babe_ ,” Danny says, though Steve doesn’t hear it so much as reads it on his face.

Danny presses his forehead to Steve’s and smooths his hair back, planting a chaste kiss on his lips. He feels the soft exhale of Danny’s words against his skin and a couple of them filter through, “… _cold_ … _more blankets_.”

“Danny, Danny.” Steve tries to put some space in between them, but Danny is practically glued to his body. He smooths Steve’s hair back again and places fluttery kisses all over his face. “Slow down, I’m dizzy. Please.”

“Sorry.” Danny presses his forehead to the pillow and maybe— probably— mumbles something into it. When he looks up again he looks lost for a second; eyebrows knit together and eyes wetter than before.

He steadies himself in the span of a couple deep breaths.

“Are you okay?” asks Steve, to which Danny nods. “Are you sure? Kono said—” Danny rolls his eyes and for a moment it looks like a cranky retort might be forthcoming, but then, a couple of fat droplets run down his cheeks and he all but swallows his own words. Steve talks instead, “I’m sorry I denied you breakfast, word is you fainted like a damsel in distress.” Danny bites his cheek on the inside and blinks a few more tears away. This is the more choked up Steve has ever seen him over something not Grace-or-Charlie-related, he’s used to Danny exploding in fast paced rants and hand waving, not this; it makes him anxious.

“Worried,” is all that comes out, too soft for Steve to hear, but he can read it around the set of his jaw and the way his eyebrows shoot up in despair.

There’s a charged pause, a torrent of unsaid words between them. Finally, Steve settles for, “She also said you went down like sack of potatoes,” hoping it’s not the wrong thing to say.

Danny smiles in a way that manages to reach his eyes and wipes his tears away, a few of them rolling down to his chin.

“Lies, it's all lies, Kono wasn't even there.” Which elicits a soft chuckle out of Steve and a half smile from Danny in return. “Don't make me smile, you asshole, I was worried for you.”

“Yeah, me too,” Steve sighs, swallowing thickly.

Danny clears his throat and drags a chair close to the bed, planting himself there.

“How you feeling?”

“I'm— as long as I don't move too much I'm fine.” He also has a headache. His eyes are drooping. And there's fifty percent chance he'll end up throwing up again. But he doesn’t say that.

“And the hearing?” Danny gestures to his own ear for clarification.

“It comes and goes. I can pick up a word here and there. There’s a lot of ringing.”

Danny places a hand on top of Steve’s, drawing soothing circles with his thumb.

“You ‘ld?”

“What?”

“You _‘ld_?” And there goes his hearing again, almost impossible to concentrate with the ringing blocking everything around it. He shakes his head in a minute _no_ to Danny, who in return rubs his own arms and pretends to shiver, pointing to Steve afterwards with a questioning face.

“Cold?” Danny nods. “Yeah,” he mumbles, exhausted all the sudden. “How did you know?”

Danny shrugs in response with a faint smile and a gesture of the hand that seems to say, “ _With you? It happens a lot._ ” His hand snakes past the bed covers and pushes the call-button a few times, taking a detour on the way back to smooth back Steve’s hair. Steve hums in approval.

When a nurse comes into the room, Steve can barely follow what they’re saying, most words turned into a shapeless hubbub sound that prickles like barbed wire inside his head. By the time Danny turns around to face him again, Steve is well underway to dreamland and there’s nothing he can do about it. He still manages to whisper an “I missed you, Danno,” because that’s what they do; no matter what, they reassure each other inside the bubble they’ve created around themselves when it comes to hard times. He doesn’t need to hear or see Danny to know he says it right back, placing a gentle kiss on his temple before he drifts away.

 

**/07**

The next morning at the hospital goes like a dizzying merry-go-round of people coming and going from his room. There’s a whirlwind of blood tests and neurological exams that start at six-oh-hundred and repeat every two hours. His arm aches from being constantly hooked to a stream of liquids and painkillers. When he’s finally deemed fit to have some bland food delivered to his room, his stomach rebels against the two meagre slices of bread, even if they’re light on the butter with a thin slice of turkey ham on top. His ears feel stuffed to the brim and they pop a bit once he starts chewing, like having the mother of all colds only worse and way more painful. He bites small pieces and chews them slow and careful. He washes it all down with the cup of tea and his stomach seems to settle a bit with that, but not enough to stay down and docile. No, this is an irritable organ spoiling for a fight; it lurches to his throat with every change in position, and his brain doesn’t cooperate much either, translating any shift of his body as falling off a cliff. That morning he ends up throwing up twice.

The specialist makes a swift appearance at ten; news on the hearing front haven’t changed much after being initially assessed, the whole area too sensitive to take an audiometry. Doctor’s orders are to keep on changing bandages on his right ear as needed, and pump him full of antibiotics and more painkillers. He’s hurting enough that he can see his own pain reflected on the faces of the people that surround him. Danny’s brand of empathy slicing a thin knife of guilt low in his gut, whilst Kono’s turns to pity whenever she thinks he’s not looking. He was told Chin and Lou are working the case in liaison with HPD and ICE; the case blown wide open after forensics linked the design of the IED to a known cartel that might be branching out to human-trafficking. The DEA was bound to get involved in less than a week.

Around noon, the doctor on call makes her rounds, and after learning about his stomach’s pyrotechnics, prescribes an increase on his antiemetic. By then, all he’s eaten in the past thirty hours is one lousy breakfast that didn’t even stay inside very long, and the analgesics have taken a toll on his person. His mind’s all fuzzy and cloudy, thoughts trickling one at a time like molasses, and the part in charge of planning and censorship is clearly sipping on margaritas instead of doing its job. He mentions to the sexy doc on call about how he feels funny down there, and immediately laughs and corrects to _inside_ , which all in all, only makes his comment fractionally better. The doc gives him a stern look, but still smiles politely at him, and goes to check his chart. A buzz of pleasure pools in his stomach at the sight of her hair brushing her face and the very peak of her breasts, even if it is over her combat uniform and white coat. Camo-green had never been more arousing before. He babbles on until Danny blushes to the roots of his hair and slaps a hand over his mouth, apologising profusely at the doctor in Steve’s name. He deduces this by the state of his partner’s furrowed frown.

A memory crosses his mind, and he says, “I told you I deserved to be called Smooth Dog.”

Danny goes stiff besides him, and turns to him with a face crossed between ‘ _unbelievable_ ’ and ‘ _get a therapist, Steven!’_. He doesn’t understand why Danny would look at him like that. He lets it slide, focusing on staring at Danny under the hospital’s sketchy lights instead. This is much more satisfying than any other activity he can think of. The buzz of pleasure glows into white-out inside of him and all around him. Sadly, a few minutes later, Danny tells him he’ll be absent for a while and to “ _please, behave”._

Things get progressively blurrier after that, until they come to a screeching halt, and then he blacks out. 

 

**/08**

Next time he wakes up, his head is much clearer, like the fog has finally lifted and he can see the edges of the city in sharp contrast with the sky. And then, the image of the contents of an entire room raining down on him flashes through his eyes and he tenses down to his toes, his entire body protesting the abuse.

Turning on his bed reveals Danny asleep with a newspaper dangling from his fingers on a very uncomfortable-looking chair. He’s changed clothes from the day before, which means that at some point he either went home, or someone brought him a change. He’s wearing his ratty old jeans and a t-shirt that’s frayed around the hems, his ‘classy’ version of _Lazy Sunday_ attire. For a second, he wonders what lies beneath those clothes, if Danny has any new scars or injuries after the blast. There’s a distant ache on his chest that he has long associated with being in love with this man, like a chord stretched too tight, and then there’s a surge of need from deep within to yank the chord and pull him into his bed, but when he moves forward to tap on Danny’s knee, his entire body reminds him, like a punch to the gut, that he had a close call with an IED less than forty hours ago, he groans in discomfort and retreats to the safety of his bed to let his body settle down and relax.

Danny wakes with a start. His dominant hand goes immediately to his hip, even going as far as making the motion to pop the strap of the holster that isn’t there. His eyes go wild and scan the room before landing back on Steve.

“ _Babe_ ,” he says, and Steve can hear that as if through a wall of compacted cotton. The word is hot and heavy on his head, spiking the beginnings of a nasty headache to come, and a burning sensation at the base of his neck. If it wasn’t for the medication, he’s sure he would be throwing up all over Danny, again. “How you doing today?”

“Better,” he rasps out.

“Liar,” Danny counters.

“Maybe.” He goes for broke and tries to sit up, but ends up flailing about and looking embarrassed; his arms an odd mixture of jelly-like density and dull pain.

“Yeah, yeah.” Danny rolls his eyes, reaching for the bed controller. “I’m a GI Jerk and don’t ask for help, _ever_. Change the tune, would you?” The bed moves slow and gentle, pushing him up until he’s seated comfortably with the cover pooling around his lap. He notes there’s a new red warning on his hospital-issued wristband that wasn’t there yesterday. 

“What happened?” He asks looking up at Danny, and in turn his partner does this minute shuffling of the eyebrows that’s meant to conceal shock. Steve backtracks immediately to put him at ease. “Not the IED; yesterday after you left.” The corners of Danny’s mouth lift into a mocking grin and Steve has good reasons to fear what comes next.

“You had a weird reaction to the painkillers and it made you into a lust monster— well, no, you’re always horny, that I know, it just squash’d your ability to keep it private.” Steve groans, and stifles the impulse to shake his head in order to clear his mind from the memories this information conjures up. “Chin caught it on camera; you trying to grab my ass and pinching the air every single time; you were so high off your rocker. It was undignified. Kono says she admires your _‘n’c’ty._ ”

His _what?!_

Danny picks up on his confusion and lifts a finger that means _‘wait’,_ turns around and ruts in his pockets at the same time he retrieves the newspaper, writing on it quick and efficient.

_TENACITY_

Steve’s about to comment on it, when a nurse walks in with a frown on her face and gives him a thousand-yard stare. He vaguely remembers saying something… inappropriate to her, about her physique. He feels the heat of a blush blooming from his chest up.

She starts talking at him with a stern commanding voice and he has to stamp down the urge to salute her. He ducks his head and mumbles an apology for yesterday. When he looks up he realises Danny’s holding back laughter by sheer willpower (though he doubts it means it will spare him from the mockery once the nurse leaves). She checks his vitals, and asks him questions that are short and to the point. Which he’s thankful for, it’s hard to understand what she’s saying and three times now, Danny has had to step in and clarify for her. The nurse is looking at him expectantly now, and so is Danny. Steve shakes his head and the stupid grin vanishes from Danny’s face. Very few words had filtered through the cotton wall of his ears, making it impossible to understand what had been asked.

The nurse, notes something on her chart and says something to him, slower and clearly enunciating her phrases. His eyes search Danny’s and then land right back on the lips of the woman. He thinks he picks up a word here and there, but he’s not sure; it all becomes a jumble of sounds and blanks, _huge_ blanks in her speech. He throws a harried look to Danny and this time he definitely picks up on it. Danny says _something_ to the nurse and she turns to talk to Danny, effectively cutting Steve out. He’s surprised to find this sends a wave of both relief and exasperation over him.

As soon as the nurse leaves, Danny raises his hands to placate him, used to dealing with him angry and blowing steam off his ears, it stands to reason that he would think he’s more offended than frustrated and worried.

“Alright, stand down, Super SEAL. One,” Danny extends a finger in front of him, “she was _not_ amused by your behaviour las’ night. But that’s not what this is, alright? She appreciated the apology. Good soldier points for you there.” He soothes. “Two,” Danny extends a second finger, “I’m giving you the gran’pa treatment. I’m being loud and talkin’ in a deep sexy voice. She wasn’t. She tried, but she has a very hi’ pitch’d voice. So, that face you’re doing right now? Don’t. Just _don’t_.”

Steve lets that sink in and swallows his words for completely different reasons than Danny must be thinking, which is sort of confirmed when Danny does his ‘ _whatcha gonna do?_ ’ patented-shrug in return.

“What did she say?” Steve asks.

“You are getting out,” Danny points to the door, “this afternoon at four.” He holds as many fingers in front of Steve’s face, to emphasise the time. “Hang tight, you hear me?”

He does. Which arises some questions. “Danny, can you talk to me like you always do?” He can see Danny’s about to protest so he cuts him off with, “Don’t ask me a thousand questions, just do it.”

Danny cringes at his words, but moves on, asking, “What should I say?”

“Anything.”

He rattles his brain for a bit, and then starts talking. “You ‘ave the right to— ‘n silent and ‘fuse to— ‘estions. ‘ing ya say— be— ‘ainst you in court of ‘aw.” Danny stops and Steve gestures him to keep going. Danny looks put upon, but does as he’s told. “Ya hav’ the ‘aight to consult an ‘torn’y…,” he trails off, turning a searching eye towards Steve. His features go soft around the edges. He says, “you don’t hear shit, do you?”

A lump of emotion wells up in Steve’s throat and he shakes his head. _No, he doesn’t hear that well. No._ The room spins into a dizzying array of too-bright colours and there’s not enough air. He’s sure he’s going to suffocate, even though he’s aware of how irrational that thought is. Danny stands at his side and places a hand on his chest, pushing him back in one smooth motion against his pillows.

“Steve, this is temporary. The doctor said so. You need to calm down, babe, you gonna hurt yourself if you keep it up. Calm down, I got you.”

Danny’s words blend one into the other as he focuses on his breathing and stopping himself from hyperventilating. Danny eventually leaves his side, presumably to retrieve a doctor or a nurse, and Steve sags against the back of the bed. When he closes his eyes, and leans back into his pillow, he can _feel_ himself breathing faster, but he can’t hear himself, nor the rustle of the covers around him, he can’t hear anything else beyond his own thoughts.

It’s terrifying.  

 

**/09**

At four sharp in the afternoon, the otorhinolaryngologist, Dr Lee, comes in with a folder in his hands and an orderly in tow, who’s pushing a shiny wheelchair into the room and giving him a thoughtful look. Her shoes look like they would squeak against the floor.

Steve’s already dressed and eager to leave. Danny’s been doing a terrific job of keeping his mind off things and entertained, but there’s only so much a man can take of four pristine, white walls and a string of nurses, orderlies and new residents, poking their heads in every couple of hours or so. (Not all at once, _mercifully_ ). Besides, Danny’s spirits are flagging as well: from what little Danny was willing to say, Steve has put together that his partner knocked his head pretty bad, and has a few minor abrasions from crawling his way to him in the immediate aftermath. He hasn’t broached the subject of driving back home, because he doesn’t want to get near that with a ten-foot pole, lest he be called a hypocrite, but he really hopes Chin, Kono or Lou are outside waiting in the car, because Danny doesn’t really look like he’ll make it all the way to their home without the mother of all headaches splitting his head in two.

Dr Lee sets the folder down on the table and does a _thing_ with his lips and face, a gesture Steve’s brain belatedly interprets as clearing his throat. He’s apprehensive about what the doc will say, even if he already knows most of it at a superficial functional level, however, getting all the gory technical details makes it all too real. Having other people present as it goes down makes it even worse; it’s like having witnesses to his failures, people who will later testify to his courage in the face of declared chaos. It makes his heart clench in anticipation. If he thought he could get away with kicking Danny out and live to tell the tale, he would, he totally would.

The orderly finishes fussing over the wheelchair and gives him a lazy shaka sign on her way out, her hair bouncing around her face as she turns around. All the sudden Steve realises he knows the woman from high school and a deep heatwave of embarrassment courses through him. Danny gives him a questioning eye and Dr Lee chooses that exact moment to start explaining to him the results about his ears, effectively derailing Danny in his mission of asking him a thousand questions through face-gesture code.

In short, the doctor has decided to forgo an audiometry until his ears are less inflamed. They’re expecting a temporary 50 to 70-decibel drop in hearing on his right ear and about 40 to 60 on his left, especially in the higher frequencies range.

“These numbers are an estimate,” Dr Lee says, enunciating every word with care, “based on my experience working with military personnel exposed to acoustic and barometric trauma”. Steve’s not sure if that’s supposed to reassure him or not, he’d rather not find out, he nods for the doctor to go on. “In simple words,” the doc continues, “if your phone rings at arm’s length,” he demonstrates by extending his own arm, “you will hear it, if it rings a room away, then not. You’ll hear a truck passing by, but not a bicycle. You shouldn’t expose yourself to loud noises, because it could compound on the trauma. And you’ll have to keep your right ear bandaged for a couple of days.” He hands him a sheet with a list of sounds and how loud they are, circling the range between 40 to 60dB: Quiet classroom, working refrigerator, sound of the human voice. “This is your grey area that should come back in time and with the proper care. Beyond that, time and further tests will tell.”

From there on Steve can extrapolate; the coffee-maker will have to be watched closely, because he will not hear it bubbling its readiness from the other side of the _kitchen_. Whispers about nothing with Danny, in the middle of the night, are out, lest they exchange romantic murmurs for affectionate screams. The mere idea of it is both ridiculous and daunting. The sound of waves hitting the shore behind the house; the rumble of the Marquis’ engine passing by; Charlie’s babbling at the breakfast table when the kids stay over. They’re all out. A chill runs through him, making him feel frazzled to the touch.

“High-pitched women’s voices will be tricky,” the doctor adds. And Steve can practically hear in his head Danny’s smug: _“aren’t you glad you have a boyfriend?”_ One quick look at Danny confirms his hunch and he must suppress the urge to roll his eyes, but then Danny regales him with what’s supposed to be an encouraging smile and he’s reminded why he didn’t really want anybody in here to listen to all of this. He absolutely loathes being pitied.

Danny must sense the detour his thoughts have taken, judging by the frown, but now is not the time nor the place. Steve redirects his attention to Dr Lee and his imperturbable moustache. Keeping a moustache like that under the incandescent sun of Oahu, now _that_ takes real courage.

The list of symptoms goes on. Tinnitus will become the soundtrack of his life for a while, though the doctor doesn’t really know how long a while, as apparently, tinnitus is not as well understood as one would hope. Dizziness and vertigo are to be expected, and it should be less and less as the days go by. And then he moves on to general health and Steve mentally checks out; enough, he’s heard these instructions before, he’s done hearing how broken up his body is and how many more times it will likely betray him.

The doc hands him a folder with his discharge papers and a copy of all the tests results he had the day before. There’s at least three sheets on proper care of wounds, ear injuries and vertigo. He then asks him if he has any questions and to sign the papers at the end. As the folder changes hands from Dr Lee, to Steve, to Danny; the doc reminds him once again his next appointment is next week and to call if he has any questions, handing him yet another sheet of paper, which happens to be his prescription for the array of pills he’s meant to take for the next couple of weeks. Did he already use the word daunting? Try intimidating and appalled, that should cover it.

Five minutes later, he’s bundled on a wheelchair on his way to the hospital’s pharmacy. He doesn’t remember being discharged taking so long before, but then again, he doesn’t remember ever being this eager and disheartened to go back home after an injury. The whole recovery process seems to be hanging almost exclusively on a _let’s wait and see_ frame of mind, and he has a more _hands on_ kind of approach to life. The fact his meds include five anti-anxiety rescue pills in case of emergency (which means, in case he starts panicking again) doesn’t really help matters.

 

**/10**

Pills and folder tucked in his lap, they reach the sliding doors and the first whiff of fresh air in days. Danny’s pushing his chair and Steve can tell he’s losing steam fast. For starters, he’s completely quiet, no huffing and puffing and bitching about it. No teasing about his hundred-and-sixty-something butt being pushed around like in a baby’s carriage. Plus, he has dark circles under his eyes and a pinched face, worrying his lips every now and then. Just as they stop short of wheeling off into the parking lot, Kono and Chin come bouncing around the corner. He manages to wave a hand in greeting, but the actual words end up being swallowed by a yawn, Danny’s not the only one drained from the day.

“’ice one, ‘oss,” says Kono around a smile, all dimples and clear eyes. Steve kind of does and doesn’t get what she meant to say, but he doesn’t have the energy to ask her to elaborate either.

“Finally! I thought you had ditch’ us or something!” Danny interjects, clapping Chin on the shoulder with renewed energy.

“Never, mini-’oss,” says Kono at the same time Chin says, “Sorry, brah, ICE has ‘s by the short one’ with this case.”

Steve cranes his neck, curious to see what Danny will be like after being called ‘mini’. Disappointingly, Danny just rolls with it, too tired and dead on his feet, trying to get home soon. Chin seems to sense this, a bubble of vitality exploding inside his usual zen persona very much intent in getting them going.

“I’ll tell you all about it on the ride home,” Chin says, extending his hand and taking charge of Steve’s wheelchair. “We flipped for it and Kono’s taking your car back to the house,” he informs Danny. His eyes bulge like a cartoon and then he turns to Kono and says something. Whatever it was is lost to a yawn and the slurred words that come afterwards; it couldn’t have been that bad though, or Kono has lost whatever respect she had left for Danny’s seniority, because she laughs and slaps Danny on the chest lightly.

“’cause my car has fo’r doors, that’s why!” She pumps her fist in the air with the Camaro’s keys and walks opposite to them. Danny snorts a laugh that makes him look about five years younger and Chin shakes his head. It’s a scene taken out of a quiet Friday evening right before they head out for drinks. The images juxtapose in Steve’s head in a way that makes him doubt if he’s standing up or down, and then he remembers too late he’s not supposed to shake his head or move too much.

Danny’s hand lands on his shoulder, a steadying weight. He rounds and stops in front of him, face inches from his own. “No puking in Kono’s car, babe, ya hear me? I’ll never hear the end of it if you do.” The fact that Danny searches his face in a zig-zag pattern, assessing his well-being is not lost on him. Nor the love in his eyes and the warmth his lover’s directing towards him.

Getting into the car is more difficult than expected and he’s very grateful for the forethought of using a car with four doors and a floor that’s not a mere few inches off the ground. The sensation that he’s not able to draw a full breath is a bit of a surprise, but it’s something he had been warned about because of the mild oedema in his lungs. Danny, on his part, suppresses a groan when he gets in. Steve can see him over the mirror on the sun visor, he’s cradling his side as he slides his butt on the back seat all the way to the middle, a deep scowl on his face now that he thinks Steve isn’t watching. Danny’s never kept him out of this part of his life before, he doesn’t know why Danny suddenly thinks Steve needs protection. Danny looks up and notices Steve following his every move and mouths ‘later’ to him. Steve nods, once, short and mostly with his eyes, still afraid to throw up his stomach’s contents.

After Chin’s behind the wheel he gives Steve a grim look and hands him a bottle of Gatorade. Chin’s version of “ _seriously, brah, no throwing up_.”

The ride home is blessedly peaceful. A part of him kept expecting a black nondescript car to take them down on the way, or more explosions, or something. Chin goes over what little new info they have on the traffickers, which basically amounts to a suspected gang of eight active members on the islands and about three-hundred million dollars to back them up from their base of operations. Still not sure where that base of operations is, as the gang might be a coalition between two to four different drug cartels that are looking to branch out in their Pacific Area operations. Talk about intricate, and yet, they still don’t have enough to even begin to coordinate raids. Chin gives him sideways glances every now and then, as he explains in short concise sentences what’s going on. Three days ago, he was confident they were going to dismantle the entire organisation in less than a month, today he’s not even sure he’ll bounce back to his feet in the same time span.  

Back at home, he drags his feet from the car, to the living room, to the lanai, and parks himself in a chair looking out to the sea. Ignoring Kono’s pitiful eyes and her hands loaded with grocery bags. Chin makes to follow him at first, but Danny shakes his head at him and finally they all let him be.

After a while, Danny comes out and stands in front of him, arms crossed over his chest, staring at him for a good twenty seconds, then, without a word, he grabs his face and kisses his forehead. “Take your time,” he says, and heads back inside. The angry buzz in his head starts to wind down after that.

He glances back at the house, noting Kono has made Danny sit on a kitchen chair and charged him with the sorting of the groceries, while Chin opens one cabinet after another until a lot more kitchen utensils than he remembers owning make it to the counter. They’re getting dinner started. Bless them.

The breeze blows into his face, carrying the smell of his beloved ocean, the sand tickles in between his toes and off into the distance he can see a couple of birds picking fish from the water. He doesn’t hear any of it, though. He has a general sense of ambient sounds, like a big wave crashing onto the rocks, or an especially loud bird, but not much else.

He takes a deep breath, holds it for a couple of seconds and releases it slow and steady. There’s prickling and stinging in his eyes and his heart does a somersault inside his chest. He refuses to panic, and immediately after, he forbids himself from crying. He’s had worse in his life and survived relatively unscathed. This time will be the same, he tries to convince himself, looking for calm within himself and desperately trying to latch onto the feeling. In the end, he rubs his eyes raw until the tears stop.   

 

**/11**

The first day back home is as dull as they come. Sleeping is less about resting, and more about tossing and turning. He wakes Danny up a few times during the night, and each time he sees him blink in confusion and then burrow further under the blankets, surrendering back to exhaustion, until at one point he just scoots away and buries his head under his pillow, turning his back on Steve. Steve achieves uninterrupted sleep after that. 

When Steve wakes up, he does it gradually, in little increments of self-awareness until he realises Danny’s no longer in bed and he has no inkling of what time it is. His internal clock declares itself befuddled and unwilling to cooperate too, so it’s up to him to get out of bed and investigate. Easier said than done. He’s behind on his painkiller schedule, that much he’s aware of; there’s a dull sort of pain all over, punctuated by sharper shots down his back and neck, especially on the right side.

But needs must.

He gathers himself and drags his feet to the bathroom with a mental litany of “move, you fucker” and “you better not trip, McGarrett”. Once he’s done there, he feels a bit more human, or at least human enough to go downstairs and track Danny down. On his way to the stairs he sees the door to Grace’s open and a heap of purple blankets on the floor, he tucks the image away for later.

He ends up finding Danny sprawled on the couch, nursing a mug of coffee and wild bed hair; he looks the way Steve feels.

“Morning,” Danny slurs, unintelligibly, but Steve has seen his face contort into this haphazard array of sounds often enough, he knows what he says even if he can’t quite hear it.

“Morning,” he replies.

Having found Danny, he gives a longing look in the direction of the kitchen. He needs food and then his pills, precisely in that order.

Danny pats the seat beside him and mumbles something without looking up, drowsy and sluggish. Other than Danny asking him to sit beside him, Steve’s lost. He still plops down, though; a tactical regrouping of sorts. The kitchen feels very far away today, for some reason. Danny mumbles again, a deep garbled sort of sound, and looks up at him expectantly. Steve has zero idea what he just said.

“What?”

Danny rubs his forehead and Steve feels a little offended that Danny’s getting annoyed; it’s not like he _wants_ not to hear shit.

“Sorry, babe. I’m too ‘sleep still. Want breakfast?” He nods for lack of words. Of course, Danny’s not blaming him for what happened, he chastises himself.

“Here, hold my coffee,” Danny says, sliding with calculated movements out of the couch. It looks painful. He pads to the kitchen, head hanging low and holding his side. Steve gives him about thirty seconds of advantage and then follows.

**/11.2**

May God bless his ohana. Turns out that Chin and Kono, before they left the day before, left a heap of food in the fridge, including chopped fruits and veggies and other fun stuff, including ready-to-use pizza dough with a little note for Danny: “in case you get tired of rabbit food.” On the other side of the note, Kono’s scrawl states, “PS: Boss, Danny works out, don’t bitch.” Against his own wishes, he ends up laughing at that.

 

**/11.3**

They spend the rest of the day ignoring the TV and the Ancient Aliens marathon currently playing, well, Danny ignores it, Steve finds he doesn’t really understand anything, which pisses him off by degrees until he doesn’t have the energy to care anymore. It’s not that anger goes away as much as it goes into hibernation.

Danny turns to look at him, a bowl of reheated pasta in his lap and says, “You look better, babe.”

It gives him pause.

For one, Danny hasn’t said much all day and besides Danny’s almost shouted words, there’s not much he can hear around the house. He never thought he would pay this much attention to something as trivial as the whisper-sound of clothes chaffing against the couch, or Danny’s deep sighs of annoyance, and yet, here he is, moping at the loss of his hearing.

Secondly, he has to wonder what he looked like the day before; what greeted him on the mirror in the morning was a pale face, black circles under his eyes, and a dozen cuts and burns on his neck and arms. In his own opinion, he looks like crap today.

They go to bed shortly after that. Steve pretends he doesn’t notice Danny slip away to tidy up the spare room and Danny pretends he isn’t hurting on his left side whenever he turns or straightens his back.

 

**/11.4**

Around midnight, Steve opens his eyes just in time to watch Danny walk out the door into the hallway. He doesn’t come back after that. There’s a pang of loss in his chest and something churns unpleasantly inside. Last thing he remembers is thinking about dragging Danny back to bed. His brain falls asleep before he can get to the dragging part.  

 

**/12**

The second day back, Tuesday, starts with Steve sitting upright with a gasp and a wince of pain. He doesn’t know what he was dreaming, but he can imagine the general content, since he’s drenched in sweat and his heart is beating a hummingbird’s tale inside his chest. His hand goes to Danny’s side and falls outstretched on the empty pillow. He’s not that surprised, he remembers seeing his partner slip away in the middle of the night, exiling himself to Grace’s bedroom.

He stretches in the same position he came to and ignores the dull pain of tender muscles as he takes one arm against his chest, pushing it further with his other hand, relishing on the pull of his shoulder. He does the same with the other and moves his head from side to side, his neck feels tense, which, _figures;_ he sees a lot of pain and tenderness in is immediate future, especially if he can’t work out on a regular basis to limber up his stiff muscles. He inhales deeply as he raises his hands above his head in an effort to salute the sun; his neck cracks satisfactorily and at the same time the breeze coming from the window changes directions, bringing the smell of coffee to his nostrils. A smile breaks out on his own accord. He lowers his arms, looking for the source of the smell. 

There’s a mug of milky coffee, some fruit and a note on Danny’s night stand. He stretches and plucks the note between his fingers, chucking a piece of fruit into his mouth with the other hand. The note says Danny went to his check up at the hospital and then to the office. It also says to text him in case he needs something. “I didn’t want to wake you. Get some rest, please. I’m serious about this part. Be back around noon.”

And Danny calls him insane and stubborn. They’re both off duty. They were both told to take it easy and hopefully in bed rest. At the very least sitting or reclining most of the time, and what does Danny do? He goes out to run errands at the office. He scowls at the paper in his hand. They could’ve gone together.

His watch reads eight twenty-five, it will be ages before Danny comes back, just enough time to do a laundry load and tidy up a bit, both things Danny won’t let him do without ranting the house down. See how he takes that, both can play at pretending doctor’s orders are no more than vague suggestions. 

When he takes the breakfast tray into his lap, two round white pills skitter to the edge. It’s hard to stay mad at the person who feeds you in bed and knows your med-regime by heart. He munches happily and finds himself smiling more than once around the edge of his mug. _What you gonna do_ , right? He’s stupidly in love. 

Next thing on his agenda is a shower. He throws the covers to the foot of the bed and further opens the windows to air the room. As he showers he’s pleased to realise he’s steadier on his feet, he throws his head back into the water spray and the world stays in its place. As a bonus the hot water does wonders loosening his cramped neck and back.

On his way to do the first load of laundry, he notices his board shorts peeking from the hamper and _what the hell_ , he says to himself, _a short lap in the ocean is just what the doctor ordered_. He makes sure to get the washing machine going and for once he leaves the dishes to the dishwasher. He needs to relax, he says to himself, to burn some excess energy, and swimming is the gentlest of workouts he can think of, and that settles it on his mind.

 

**/12.2**

It takes him about a hundred metres of laid back freestyle swimming to realise what a huge mistake he just made. At first, he thinks the unpleasant feeling building in his stomach is a consequence of being bounced into the ground by the IED blast; sore muscles and little else. Then, it occurs to him it might be breakfast not sitting well with him, sometimes he gets queasy when he has coffee and fruits with nothing else to cushion the mix. But then the queasiness stretches like taffy from his belly to the back of his head, like a loose cable inside that’s messing all his navigational instruments.

Finally, he accepts there’s something very wrong when he tries to breathe over his shoulder and he can’t figure out if his head is going in or out of the water. He splutters to clear his airway, but still ends up swallowing a good cup of sea water, the smell and the taste of it stir his guts, conjuring up images of soggy seaweeds washing up on shore. His stomach revolts at that.

He flips on his back and the world flips with him, his internal compass shot to hell. He focuses on the difference between the sky and the feel of water on his back to convince himself he’s got the right side up. His inner ear disagrees with him entirely and bile rises to his throat. He refuses to throw up. He has swum with a concussion before, so he won’t be defeated by a little bout of dizziness this time.

He inhales sharp and deep, releasing in controlled steady breaths. Once he feels confident he can move his head a few inches to get his bearings he locates the shore and starts swimming in that direction, still on his back. It’s hard gruelling work, all the time keeping his breathing patterns steady and controlled. The moment he panics is the moment he loses the battle.

His shoulder is the first to denounce its unhappiness towards the situation. It dawns on him he’s doing this wrong, he needs to get to shore fast, the more time he spends in the water, the greater the chance he’ll end up drowning. He allows himself five seconds of rest before turning and going back to the freestyle stroke. His head feels like it’s going to explode, closely followed by his lungs, and he has to shut his eyes when he goes up for air, lest he loses his bearings again. A Sergeant back from BUD/S comes to mind, booming feral voice included; when things got hard he used to shout to his face: “Mind over matter, if you don’t mind it doesn’t matter! Push harder!” He replays it in his head like a mantra until he crawls his way into the beach and collapses far enough from the water he’s no longer in danger of being pulled back in. A heaving mess, he has enough of a mind to turn into the recovery position before he pukes his guts out.

 

**/12.3**

Almost an hour later he drags his sorry ass back into the house. Chases his vertigo meds around the kitchen counter and downs them with half a glass of tap water, sitting down on the floor, wrapped in one of Charlie’s LEGO blankets. The trail of sand from the door to the kitchen is the only proof of what just happened and he throws daggers at it with his eyes. It’s easier to do that then to give in to self-recrimination: how he can be so smart and so stupid at the same time.

His chest rattles when he takes deep breaths and he prays to any god available it doesn’t end up with him at the ER in the middle of the night. Danny will never let him live it down if it does.

 

**/13**

When Danny comes back, Steve’s decked out on the couch, wrapped on a different blanket than before, and the evidence of what transpired mere hours ago, swept under the proverbial rug, or rather on the drying cycle in the mudroom and the trail of sand back to where it belongs.

It’s not that he still feels terribly dizzy (he is dizzy, just not as bad as before), but he is tired, and his chest feels a bit constricted, in the middle of coughing up a lung he remembered he had some inflammation that was surely aggravated by his little outing to sea, leading him back to the original idea of how is it possible for him to be so smart and stupid at the same time.

Danny does a walk-by behind the couch and squeezes his shoulder in an affectionate way, but a kiss doesn’t come afterwards, which is odd and lures him out of his self-made cocoon only to find Jerry standing behind the couch, doing his best to pretend he hasn’t noticed him yet.

“What’s in the folders?”

“Oh, ‘ello, ‘mander.” Jerry barely looks at him, shuffling on his feet from side to side. “Fo’ders?”

Steve raises and eyebrow and points at his hand.

“Oh, ‘ight, yes. Chin thought you woul’ want to b’ kept in the loop?” Jerry hands over the files. Steve takes them, but doesn’t look at them right away, he’s following Danny’s progress as he walks back into the room with a peeved scowl on his face.

“Back off, Steve, Jerry’s just the messenger,” says Danny, placing a glass of water on the table and pointing to it with a clear command behind the gesture. _Drink it all_. He sits down next to him on the couch, giving him a long meaningful stare. It doesn’t bode well.

Jerry must get the message too, because he points in the direction of the kitchen, mumbles something he can’t quite catch and leaves the room.

“You doing okay, Steven?”

“Yes.”

“You sure?” Steve shrugs in response, because what else is he going to say. “Alright then, give me a file, I don’t know what’s going on with anything, but Chin seemed piss’d off and it takes a lot to rile that guy up.” Steve transfers the whole bundle into Danny’s hands, freeing his own to retrieve the glass of water. He gulps it down all at once and then focuses on the papers Danny’s passing his way, but not before tucking the blanket around himself and his partner. Danny gives him a less strained smile than before and off they go, discussing the case.

 

**/13.2**

It’s two hours later and the case so far is a jumble of different department acronyms; long, choppy, paper trails that go into spirals from one city to the next; a bunch of no longer used aliases; three abandoned warehouses; two abandoned houses; and a handful of stolen cars; and yet, no more than chum-change for money and maybe an ounce of weed forgotten at a site with no viable fingerprints. Forget about reliable witnesses that could go beyond the same mid-hierarchy wannabe boss name, which, surprise-surprise, it’s an alias. They might as well be going after Keyser Söze. These guys were good when it came to either erase their prints, be it virtual, physical or metaphorical, or entangling the information up so bad, it was confounding even the best of them.

There are analysts involved, on loan from the FBI, trying to crunch the incredible amount of information they’ve amassed so far, and the case just keeps getting bigger and bigger. For a while there, Steve’s surprised the NSA hasn’t gotten involved yet. From an operational standpoint, Five-0 is still inside the loop because of the eclectic skills and knowledge they bring to the table, thanks mainly to the wide array of cases they’ve handled in the past; however, as of _The Exploding House Incident,_ Five-0 went from field operational resource, to operation-savvy hosts to the island.

“Yeah, I’m surprised Homeland Security hasn’t swooped in and taken point.”

“I hear ya,” he says back to Danny, stretching his arms over his head and wincing when his shoulder reminds him of this morning’s shenanigans. It looks like Danny’s about to say something when he turns around to face Jerry, who just walked in from the kitchen and is drying his hands on a dish towel. Jerry’s talking, but he can’t hear much more than a rumble of sounds, he doesn’t bother to let him know, though, he’s sure if it were important, Danny would’ve stepped in already. 

 

**/13.3**

They all have lunch together, huddled up on the kitchen table. Jerry’s acting strange— well, stranger than usual, but not giving enough clues to figure out why, maybe he’s just keyed up on seeing Steve all banged up. Conversation’s scarce on his end, because Jerry’s words get blurred around his beard and Danny’s drinking chamomile tea with his lunch, which means his throat is hurting, so he won’t make it worse by asking him repeatedly what just happened.

In the middle of chasing a cheesy bit of Parmesan chicken, Danny’s phone, which is on the table, flashes with a message from Kono and Danny leaves the table to return the call, upping the suspicion level by at least twenty percent. Both Jerry and Danny are offbeat and he’s not sure his accident is enough of an explanation as to the why.

Danny is back after a couple of minutes. A Cheshire Cat smile plastered on his face, he swaggers into the room.

“They’ve got a solid lead,” he announces. His lover’s voice a veritable roar to his ears after so long just listening to the unintelligible hubbub of their conversation. “They’re moving in now and they think they’ll get a high-tier lieutenant out of this. We gonna get them, babe!” Danny grabs him by the back of the neck and squeezes. His eyes doing the _I love you, yeah_ , thing they do after a good make out session, or an even better rumple in between the sheets. It feels a bit too intimate with company present, but he doesn’t hesitate to return the sentiment, squeezing Danny’s arm back.

Jerry clears his throat nosily enough that even Steve can hear him (probably for a second or third time) and raises his glass, calling for a toast. Danny shakes his head and takes his phone out, he reads something on the screen and does a wait a second gesture without looking up.

“They’re breaching. We getting a blow by blow recount straight from the office. Let’s wait on the toast, Jer, okay?”

Jerry lowers his glass and fixes his attention on Danny, like his life depends on it.

Danny’s phone vibrates again. Another message.

“The perps didn’t see it coming.”

Another message and Danny hurrahs with his fist in the air. “We got them. We got them!” He exclaims, exhilarated, practically shooting up from his seat.

Jerry’s face lights up and raises his glass once more, followed closely by Danny and himself. “To five-oh,” Jerry says, and they clink their glasses together. He can feel a giddy sort of grin tugging at his lips and his head swims in elation. It’s a good kind of rush knowing the bad guys are going down.

 

**/13.4**

They go to bed early, enough excitement for one day, they are both low on energy after all. Danny goes to tidy up the spare room, but Steve follows him in and leads him back to their room by the hand, a silent request to stay the night. It has started to feel like they are going to bed angry and it doesn’t sit well with him. As they lay in bed on top of the covers, Danny grunts his way into a comfortable position tangling his legs with Steve’s, he’s pretty sure that if he could, Danny would try to climb inside of him in about a minute.

“So,” he starts, “what did the doctor say?”

Danny swallows and wets his lips, collecting his thoughts. “In a nutshell, I’m fine. I should mind my bruised ribs, as you already know. I’m not allowed to do anything stren’us for at least another couple of weeks. My head’s fine too. Need to watch out for headaches, you know, the usual.”

“You going back to work on Monday?”

“No. I asked the doc to stretch my sick leave a bit. I know the manual says I should bounce back in five days after a trauma, but I just wasn’t feeling it.”

“Okay,” he says, mulling over what his partner had just said. Danny takes this as a signal to burrow further into Steve.

It’s one of those scorching hot nights, when even thinking feels like too much of a hassle, but having Danny pressed up against him and nuzzling his neck is like a drink of water to his parched soul. Steve’s careful not to jostle him up, minding Danny’s ribs and caresses his side up to his head, burying his hand deep into his hair and down to the dip of his back. Danny groans so close to his throat it feels like Steve himself groaned too.

“Did I hurt you?”

“Nooo, it feels good, it was a good sound, I swear,” he soothes, sneaking a hand under Steve’s t-shirt and groping his abs.

This could lead somewhere, Steve thinks.

Danny leans up into him, using said abs as support and kisses him. A peck on his lower lip, and then his tongue finds its way into his mouth. Steve’s heart does a little leap of joy and he skids lower on the bed to give Danny better access, sliding his hand to Danny’s hip and bringing him closer still. Danny helps by boosting himself half on top of Steve and sliding his knee between Steve’s legs, rubbing against him, and hitting all the right spots that do it for him.

Steve’s hand slides from Danny’s hip to his torso, skimming over bruised ribs and up to his nipple, caressing it with his thumb as he bites playfully into Danny’s lip, getting a gasp of surprise in response, a vacuum of air right against his mouth, which he covers by deepening the kiss. Steve takes all of two seconds to note how much he misses Danny’s little sounds and moans of pleasure and encouragement, noting as well how those are replaced by an increase of Danny’s hands roaming everywhere they can reach and frantic little tugs of clothes and fingers pressing into him, urging him to come closer.

Danny tugs Steve’s boxers down and grabs a handful of his butt, making him lose focus on his task of sucking a hickey below Danny’s shirt line. Danny rubs against him, using his still clutching hand to guide him, but nothing is happening for either of them and Danny finally blows a frustrated sort of sigh into Steve’s chest.

“Yeah, me neither, buddy,” he says into Danny’s hair. “I really want to, but… I just can’t, I was hoping you…”

“Yeah, me too.” Danny lifts his head a little as he talks, so Steve can understand him better. “Must be the painkillers. I really wanted it too.”

“This is so unsatisfying,” Steve’s says, staring into the ceiling and doing his best to will an erection to make an appearance (in either of them). The second he says it, though, he realises he shouldn’t have. Nobody likes to be kicked when they’re down.

Except Danny gets this naughty smirk on, blinking owlishly at him before stating, “Well, you know what they say, the couple that gets blue balls together, stays together.”

Steve snorts in laughter, shaking the bed with his cackles and Danny follows suit, thumping his head against Steve’s chest, laughter bubbling up from there, and starting a new cycle for Danny.

“You’re the most romantic guy I’ve ever met, Danny,” he exclaims, “hands down.”

“I know, right? Can I get it in writing, though?” He mimes writing on the air in front of Steve’s eyes. “Just in case it comes up some day?”

Steve laughs again and hugs the stuffing out of his boyfriend, apologising profusely afterwards when Danny swears him up and down in pain.

“You animal,” Danny declares, once they’ve both settled down.

“Yeah, but I’m—”

“—You’re my animal. Yes, yes, always.”

 

**/14**

“Hey, hey! Steve, remember to cover your ears,” Danny admonishes, leaning against the bed frame, smoothing down his hair.

“What?!”

“Your ears, babe?”

Steve freezes, mentally backtracking through the past three days, not once did he cover his ears, the gauze had lasted as far as the car ride home, in fact, he hasn’t been really following any of the care instructions except for taking his pills on time.

Danny appears to mistake his ‘oh shit’ moment for Steve’s garden variety of not understanding what he said, so he points to his own ear and says, “Your ears? The doc said you had to cover ‘em?” Steve soothes his face into a mask of blankness, prompting Danny to squint in return, giving him the benefit of the doubt for a couple more seconds. “From the hospital?” And then, “Steven!”

Steve raises his hands in front of him and steps backwards closer to the bathroom. “Yes, Danno, I will, Jesus, relax.”

“What you mean you will?” Danny says, “Haven’t you before?” He growls, but Steve doesn’t give him the satisfaction, feigning failure to receive message, not like it was hard to feign, this morning his ears feel stuffy and what little sound comes through feels cottony around the edges.

He shakes himself out of the funk and goes fishing for petroleum jelly and cotton balls to step into the shower.

 

**/14.2**

Danny’s showering upstairs and he’s not sure what prompts him to do it, by all accounts he should be helping put breakfast together, he feels a whole lot better today, even if his meds make him a little hazy and fuzzy-minded. He rummages around until he comes up with the right CD, placing it on the tray and fast forwarding to the last track. Nothing happens. He checks the screen and sees the numbers advancing, one second after the other. But he hears nothing. He turns it up a notch. Still nothing. Another one and the faint base line registers as if underwater. He turns it up again and again until he can feel the drums in his bones, and his chest feels funny. Most of it is still a distorted ghost of what it’s meant to be.

A hand sneaks past him headed for the radio, scaring the bejesus out of him. He reacts by grabbing said hand and pushing the person at arm’s length. He collides with Danny’s naked chest and finds himself the subject of a frown.

“Seriously? In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Steven? FOR REAL?!” He screams like he wants to be heard over a crowd, which in a way, he does. He looks pissed off, and Steve still has him in a hand hold that threatens to snap a couple of bones out of their sockets. He releases him as if he had caught fire. Danny immediately takes his hand back to his chest and rubs the wrist, nodding with his chin to the stereo, a clear, _polite_ petition to lower the volume. It is at this point Steve realises Danny still has some conditioner on his hair and is bare-butt naked.

“Sorry?”

Danny does a hand gesture that roughly translates to ‘ _lower the fucking volume, you tall freak’._ After he does, Danny adds, “This better be good, Steven.”

His partner does a somewhat dignified walk to the kitchen and less than a minute later comes back wearing boxers and drying himself as best as possible with a beach towel. He picks up his phone from the coffee table and waves it in front of Steve’s face, too close to properly see whatever it is Danny wants him to see.

“I can’t leave you alone for ten minutes without the neighbours registering a complaint.”

“What?”

“I have two missed calls from Ms Keawe, and a very nice text message.”

“Impossible, Ms Keawe loves me.”

“She actually does. She texted me. Me, Steven, _on my cell_ , you made a seventy-year-old citizen figure that out because she was _terrified_ something had happened to you.” Danny passes him the phone on the right message and yes, she was worried alright.

“How did she even get your number?”

“Seriously? I find you blasting hippie music—”

“It’s not—”

“— _loud enough_ that even Ms Keawe could hear it without her hearing aids and you want to know how she got my number? _Hello?_ Earth to Steven, weren’t you supposed to be resting and taking it easy? Wait, wait, what’s with the face?”

“What face?

“The face, you have a… what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Steven.”

“ _Daniel._ ”

“Jesus, are we doing this again?”

Steve blows a puff of air and crosses his arms over his chest. God forbid Steve doesn’t want to talk about something Danny thinks should be discussed, preferably to death. “It’s not hippie music,” he opts for a change of subject.

Danny gives him a long, clinical stare, his hands twitch on his hips, every fibre of his being buzzing to pick him on the change of subject, on his mental state, on his exposed fragilities. The thought of it disgusts him.

“I don’t think it qualifies as heavy metal either.”

“But you have to admit it’s a classic.”

“ _Oh_ , it’s something.”

“Are you _dissing Iron Butterfly_?” Steve argues, affronted.

“Oh, god, this is one of those things? Those couple cute live-in things; you start livin’ together and suddenly this whole side of them comes into focus and you don’t eve’ know’ who you’re livin’ wit’ anymore.” Danny’s hands are wild, cutting the air in all directions, he’s pretty riled up.

“You’re so dramatic, Danny,” Steve sighs. But it’s the wrong thing to say. Danny’s eyes acquire that certain fiery heat he has come to associate to perps having a really not-good, bad day.

“Yeah, because standing in front of the speakers at ear-shattering volume to figure out how bad your hearing is, has no dramatic flair at all. Not an ounce.” Steve’s jaw clenches shut so quick he figures it must have made a clicking sound. “That’s what you were doing? Isn’t it?” His lips press into a harsh line. “And you call me dramatic,” Danny throws as he loses steam. He gets to the bottom of the stairs before turning back and adding, “I’m going to finish my shower, can you please get started on breakfast? _Please?_ ” And then he’s gone.

 

**/14.3**

The rest of the day passes in a funk well into the evening when Danny says over a mug of chamomile tea, “I worry is all.” And Steve nods in understanding because he does too. They let the issue lie after that.

 

**/15**

Danny sips from his cup of coffee and looks ahead, lost beyond the horizon. Steve regards him, following the little curl of his eyelashes and going down to the faint pout on his lips. Danny still looks tired, even though they spent all the previous day lounging around and ignoring TV, much like their first day back. He even went as far as refraining from requiring Danny to talk too much at him, because apparently, the _Grandpa Treatment_ makes his throat sore and has him downing chamomile tea and honey by the gallon, not that Danny would ever complain, he doesn’t say anything and always tries to be as precise and clear with his words as possible, but it’s obvious it’s taken a toll on him.

 

Thankfully, Jerry visited the day before and came armed with take-out and mad cooking skills, leaving them well stocked, taking in consideration the kids are arriving today. Jerry said he wanted to, but he figures it’s no coincidence Chin and Kono did the same the first time around, the team must think they can barely scrounge a half-decent meal. Even if a little offended, he’s still glad, and thankful; it gave them the chance to lay back and just rest.

Thinking about the team inevitably brings him to the Kono _thing_ that’s been rearing its head from time to time. One odd phone call that Danny took into another room and a lot of text messages. Sure, she’s been keeping them both appraised of the case, but Danny’s texts seem longer and sometimes Danny frowns at his phone like he’s angry or disappointed. He hasn’t asked and Danny hasn’t told; it’s a stale mate of sorts.

Danny sips more coffee and his chest swells with a deep sigh, a goofy grin dangling from his lips. Steve’s glad Danny’s not in pain anymore, he has already gone through his pain pills and downgraded to ibuprofen. He’s just tired and not that badly banged up, he reminds himself. Steve, on the other hand, is still very much in pain, especially because he’s been taking half doses for the past day and a half; he’s decided he can’t stand feeling so hazy all day long, it makes him stupid and less in control of his actions and his thoughts, he doesn’t want an Iron Butterfly situation do over. Just the thought of it makes him frown.

He blinks himself back into the present when Danny rubs the frown away from his face with his thumb, a warm smile brightening up Danny’s features. 

“The kids still coming tonight?” Steve asks and Danny pulls a face. It boils down to ‘ _stop it with the hand-wringing, Steven’._ He gets it, he’s asked like a hundred times already and it’s only two in the afternoon.

He hates to admit it, even to himself, but he’s nervous. Their relationship is secure and stable, but Danny moved in a month ago, _to the date_ and that’s a whole different level, especially when you throw in the kids: Gracie, Charlie and Nahele. Just their ages and backgrounds alone make for very interesting dinner conversations. 

“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine. We get all the kids for the whole weekend. They will see we’re doing fine. We get to have a good time.”

“Fine.”

“I mean it.”

“Is Kono driving Nahele or should we…?”

“You shouldn’t drive, I saw you stumble down the stairs today. Plus, Lou said he would, if he somehow can’t, Renee will. So, down boy, no SEAL skills needed today.”

“Fine.”

“Fine, he says.”

“Are we arguing again?”

“I don’t know, babe, are we?”

No, they’re not. But it occurs to Steve that something is amiss, sort of.

“Can you call Renee and have her pick up Nahele?” He asks Danny, in lieu of an answer to his previous question.

“Sure, is there a reason…?”

Steve debates with himself on this one. It had never happened before, that he had had to send somebody else to pick Nahele, if he’s not swinging by Kamekona’s and visiting him during working hours, then the big guy himself drives Nahele wherever he needs to go, but there are some things he’s noticed and he’s not sure if he would be betraying the kid’s confidence by putting them out there now.

“Steve?” Danny prompts.

“Look,” he starts with a placating voice, turning on his seat to fully face Danny, “I don’t know why, I can’t explain it, okay? And I don’t— I’m not pointing accusing fingers. But I think Nahele’s afraid of Lou.” Even as he says it he realises it’s going to come out wrong and maybe completely out of left field. And Danny’s probably the wrong person to tell this to without a good dose of contextual anaesthesia, because his partner goes from chill to agitated in a heartbeat.

“WHAT?! WHY?!” Danny roars. “Did something HAPPEN?!”

“No, Danny, no.” Danny’s lips are pressing hard into a thin line and his eyes demand an explanation now. “I don’t know what it is about Lou, but Nahele flinches whenever he’s loud or you know, explodes in laughter,” Steve rushes to explain. “He swings his arms around and you bet your ass Nahele will be ducking away or just leaving the room.” Danny looks like he’s about to blow a fuse. “It’s not just him, okay, it took him a while to warm up to Kame too, and he’s really jittery and jumpy in crowded spaces, like when I took him to the mall to get clothes and school supplies. It’s got to do with foster care, I think, his previous experiences I mean.” He finishes, feeling jittery himself.

Danny forcefully takes a deep breath through his nose and sighs it out.

“Okay, I’m gonna call Renee now. But afterwards,” he gestures between them, “we need to talk about this, it’s not fair to Nahele that you know about this and we’re not doing everything in our power to make him comfortable.”

Steve nods in agreement. Danny picks his mug and goes inside through the kitchen.

Steve takes a moment to calm himself down and review the conversation they just had in his head, he never asks Nahele about his life in foster care, beyond making sure his foster family is treating him well, that is, but he knows he goes to mandatory counselling twice a month on account of the abuse and living on the streets, and he’s still flagged as a “runner” in the system. There’s a psychologist at school too, who works with him every now and then on his study habits and other school related issues, but he doesn’t _know._ Perhaps it’s high time he starts asking and getting more seriously involved.

 

**/16**

Charlie and Grace are the first to arrive. Rachel hot on their heels with a harried face that sends blaring signals in his head. But right now, he needs to worry about a toddler running at warp speed towards him. Grace runs behind Charlie saying something, presumably reminding him to be careful with Steve, but Charlie doesn’t even slow down and soon enough he’s glued to his legs, and after a beat Grace tucks herself under Steve’s arm too.

He’s happy to see them too. He hugs them tight and then ushers them the rest of the way inside, taking their stuff and putting it away in the office for now. Charlie’s talking animatedly at him, but he doesn’t understand anything he’s saying, he’s talking too fast and just not loud enough. He stops and looks up expectantly at him, clearly waiting for an answer and it’s like a pit opens at the bottom of his stomach, making his heart speed up. Grace moves in his periphery and kneels besides Charlie, Steve can hear the lilting cadence of her voice, but once again, he doesn’t understand a word, it’s all an unintelligible mess of elongated sounds.

Charlie slumps his shoulders forward and starts pouting, but Grace remains steady and soft-eyed, still talking to him, until Charlie’s pout tucks back in and he nods fervently, looking up at Steve all shinny-eyed and loving. His heart stops racing after that.

Charlie lifts his hands, asking to be picked up, and Steve obliges, he always does.

“’Ncl’ Ste’e!”

“Hey, buddy, how you doing today?”

“Goooood!” The change in his voice and way of talking is noticeable, plus, Steve makes sure to tuck him into his left side, where he can hear a bit better and what do you know, he gets enough context and sounds to make out what Charlie’s saying.

The kid starts going about how they’re staying for a week, and he brought movies and games and “surprise!” Well, he’s surprised alright. In the middle of the barrage of words and expressions and questions that don’t need a real answer, he kisses Grace’s forehead and thanks her. She nods with a knowing smile and just repeats Charlie’s last outburst: “Surprise!”

**/16.2**

Turns out Rachel had a last-minute change of plans and needs to go to the mainland on business for a week, now that she and Stan are taking some very necessary time apart (and it looks like it will soon turn into divorce), she needs to shine on her job and make the big bucks for her family.

Danny deals with it by busying himself in the kitchen, putting the kid’s stuff on their bedroom, and blowing raspberries into Charlie’s neck. Steve knows that if Danny has something to say about it, he’ll be hearing about it later.

 

**/16.3**

Nahele arrives around four, backpack in hand, looking wiped out for the day. A surge of relief washes over the kid’s face once he spots Steve arranging stuff near the corner table by the stairs (a strategic position to make sure he is the first person he sees when he comes in). Nahele immediately goes to Steve and pats him on the shoulder and executes a very manly handshake, which Steve reciprocates and then goes for a full hug for the sake of it.

When he looks up again, he realises Renee’s standing by the door giving them a tender look, her car keys dangling from her hand against her chest.

Steve points Nahele to the kitchen and tells him to ask Danny to feed him.

Renee goes up to him and greets him in a hushed tone, so he doesn’t get what she says, but he understands the sentiment.

“Thank you for picking him up, I would’ve myself, but…” He shrugs.

Renee shakes her head and starts saying something, stopping herself and starting again, making sure to look at him directly and to enunciate clearly.

“Don’t you worry about a thin’, Steve, we got you. You and Nahele. What’ver you guys need.”

He ducks his head, at a loss for words, because Danny had had to explain why they didn’t want Nahele to be picked up by Lou.

He clears his throat and says, “you want to join us? Danny and Grace are making pizza.”

“And Charlie?” She asks with a knowing smile.

“Well, Charlie’s role is debatable, he was covered in sauce last I saw him.” Renee laughs and Steve watches the line of her face transform into delight, but doesn’t hear much of it. It’s weird looking at a person laugh without the boisterous noise that goes with it. “Well, you’re welcome to stay, come in.”

“No, no, it’s fine, besides we’ll see each other on Sunday.” She gets a bit serious after that. “So, how you doing, Steve?”

“I’m…” he inhales deeply, “I’m hanging in there,” he answers on the exhale, but then Renee makes a face that says _keep going_ , so he adds, “I feel better, still healing. I have an appointment with my doctor next week, they need to run some tests, and that’s it, it’s just a waiting game.”

Renee purses her lips, but whatever she disapproves of, she keeps to herself, making Steve feel oddly exposed. Thankfully, Danny comes into the foyer, drying his hands with a paper towel and saves him from having to say anything about it. Danny greets Renee cheerfully and after a few exchanged pleasantries he escorts her back to her car.

Steve cuts his loses and goes into the kitchen, steeling himself for the mess he’s about to encounter.

He is not disappointed. Charlie is elbow deep into the sink, presumably washing the dishes, water slushing and pouring into the floor. He couldn’t be happier, though. Grace is holding Nahele’s phone away from him, doing a perfect right-foot pivot, and blocking his attempts at recovering his propriety with her elbows, not that he had showed her that type of tactics for her to use them like this.

Steve walks directly into Grace’s path and snatches the phone away, passing it over her head to Nahele with a pointed look to her. Grace and Nahele both smile widely at him, back to their angelic teenagers’ selves.

“So,” he asks to Grace and Nahele, “Charlie is doing the dishes, who’s gonna do the floors?”

Grace does a grand eye roll and goes to the mudroom to fish out the mop and Nahele does his part by joining Charlie on the sink. When Grace comes back, mop in hand, he informs him there’s a musty smell on the mudroom, but she couldn’t find where it was coming from. He’s about to go investigate, almost sure there’s a leaky pipe somewhere in there, when Danny walks in and grabs him by the shoulders, steering him into a chair and plopping him there.

“Sit down, Super SEAL, you’ll burn out b’for’ dinner if you keep tryin’ to singl’handedly fix the world.”

 

**/16.4**

“Okay,” Danny claps his hand after the movie ends, “who’s got homework for Monday?”

Nahele groans into Steve’s shoulder and Grace does the whole _‘lame, dad_ ’ routine that involves a lot of eye rolling and shoulders sagging. Charlie just yawns and burrows deeper into Danny’s side.

“Hey I’m not doin’ the hom’work dance Sunday night, you can do it now or tomorro’ mornin’, your choice,” Danny bellows in a commanding voice that leaves no room for argument.

Less than twenty minutes later, Steve finds himself parked on the dinner table with two sulky teenagers, one on each side, doing maths problems.

“How come it’s your homework, but I have to sit with you guys too?” He asks to no one in particular.

Nahele frowns at his calculator and punches numbers with a lot more force than necessary, after he gets the result, he goes to the back of his book and frowns some more.

“Need some help there, buddy?”

“Yeah,” he says, still frowning at this problem, “I k’p ‘ettin’ thes’ huge strin’ ‘f n’mb’rs.”

“Okay, run that by me again. Maybe look at me when you say it?” It comes out a lot harsher than he intended for. Nahele looks up, cheeks flushed, throwing a look at Grace, who in turn stops scribbling in her notebook, and stares at Steve.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get it right by myself,” Nahele says, not making eye contact.

God, he could _kick_ himself in the teeth for that one.

“Hey, hey. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” he soothes, placing a hand near Nahele’s. “What I was trying to say is that I can’t hear very well and I need you to look at me when you’re talking and do it as clearly as possible. I didn’t mean to… scold you or something. I promise.”

The tension lessens somewhat, but it doesn’t break completely. It’s Grace who takes charge then, much like her father would.

“You know what we need? We need ice-cream, homework is always easier with ice-cream.” Nahele gives her a tiny smile. “Also, check your calculator, make sure it’s not set in radians, that always screws up my results.” And then she’s gone.

Nahele does not know how to set his calculator back to degrees. Steve silently offers to take the calculator and show him how. Nahele slides it on the table, and Steve takes it, showing him which buttons to push.

“Thank you,” the kid says.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

The sweetheart part kind of slips out of his mouth, taking him by surprise as much as it surprises Nahele; his cheeks flush again, but this time it’s accompanied by a pleased smile, going back to his book with ease. Grace chooses that moment to appear by their side again and places the tub of ice-cream at the centre with three spoons sticking out of it.

“Grace!” Steve admonishes, because, well… he’s sure Danny wouldn’t approve.

“It’s Friday night,” she shrugs her shoulders, “and we’re doing _homework_.”

“Yeah,” Steve surrenders and scoops out a big dollop of banana fudge into his mouth.

 

**/17**

He’s not sure if it’s the sun or the gentle morning breeze but his ears feel stuffy— well, stuffier than before. He’s positive the right one went full deaf, because as little as he can hear, even if the noise comes from his right side, he hears it as if coming from his left.

His entire family still sleeps inside and he’s relishing the calm before another full day, not that he would trade having a full house for anything in the world, but sometimes it gets a bit much, even after all these years he’s still not used to having that many people around, especially people who truly care about him. (Don’t let Danny hear him say that out loud, he would probably thump him in the head or something.)

Watching the to and fro’ of the waves is relaxing and manages to soothe the bubbling worry he feels inside his chest most of the time since he first had a panic attack in hospital. It’s like a constant mantra of _‘something’s going to happen, I just know it’_ that plays on a loop inside his head, sometimes drowned by menial tasks such as doing the dishes, or important jobs, like tending to a stuffed animal’s pretend-hurt paw, but still ever present if he stops and lets his mind wander for a while. Having to take it easy for who knows how long is a dreadful prospect for the future on that regard.

He stares at the ocean some more.

After a while, as he starts to gather himself to go back inside, he detects some movement out of the corner of his eye and sees Danny approaching him from a wide circle.

“Didn’t want to startle you, babe,” he says, “sorry,” and places a peck on his lips. “You’re brooding.”

“No, I’m not,” he scoffs, shooting down the idea.

“Yeah, you are. What’s going on, on that big head of yours? Should I be worried here?”

“I’m fine, Danny, don’t be a worry wart. How you doing?”

“Oh, well, you know, my ex-wife, moth’r of my childr’n, might divorce again, and she’s never had to work full time before, and my kid still calls Stan, Daddy, which, you know, I understand.” He makes a disgusted, pained face. “And I ache all ov’r, I’m not in pain, per se, but I kinda just want to have a two—three-day long nap. And I’m worried about all those things, and about my boyfriend who won’t tell me what he’s thinking and he’s going through a major injury here, you know, potentially life alterin’, but he keeps pretendin’ everything’s fine.”

Danny makes it look so easy, talking about stuff, putting it in order, cataloguing it and just pouring it out without letting it get a hold of him.

“Your boyfriend sounds like a bit of an asshole?”

“He may be, jury’ still out on that one. I just want ‘im to know I’m ‘ere; he’s not alone.”

“He knows.”

“Oh, does he?” Danny grins.

“Yeah. I know.”

“Good.”

“And Danny?” Danny nods for him to go on, “I love you.”

“Love you too.” They kiss languidly and share the heat between them in an awkward cuddle until tiny hands start pulling at their t-shirts to lead them into the house.

Back into the fray.

**/17.2**

The rest of their Saturday consists of a Disney movie marathon, eating _a lot_ of leftovers and a long-awaited rematch of UNO, because he can’t convince himself Danny and the kids are not in cahoots with each other to make sure he always finishes last. By the time dinner rolls around, he discreetly slips the full dosage of his painkillers into his pocket and takes them in between spoonfuls of food. He pretends he doesn’t catch Danny giving him an approving half-grin from behind his glass.

 

**/18**

He wakes up feeling off kilter. When his eyes open there’s a heaviness to them that he associates with one-too-many beers just not drunk yet. This isn’t the case, though, he hasn’t even _wanted_ to have a sip of alcohol since the incident. The fact that he can’t hear the ocean outside— and every time he closes his eyes the world fades to a dull sensory memory— only adds to the strangeness.

He is on his side facing Danny’s back and his ragged mop of hair. He imagines Danny must be doing rumpled huffing noises the way his ribs expand and contract rhythmically. There's a pang of something in his chest and he rolls on his back annoyed, the ceiling fan his only distraction. This temporary loss of hearing bullshit is getting old fast, and with the _temporary_ portion of the situation being a relative term that just circles over and over in his head, he can make himself dizzy in a handful of minutes; much like staring at the fan blades circle over his head will, if he keeps it up.

A wave of discomfort rolls through him and he huffs, turning to the other side. It’s an effort to avoid entangling himself further on the sheets, because _god forbid_ he ends up stealing the covers from Danny, he is a grumpy leprechaun about it, though he firmly avoids calling him _that_ to his face, for obvious reasons.

And there goes his relaxed morning.

His entire body screams in jittery fits with the need to do something. What is wrong with him, he wonders, as he inhales deeply, holds it to the count of four and exhales slowly up to four again. This one he learnt in the Navy, early on combat training and feels very appropriate to manage this day. He holds his breath to four times and starts over. After five cycles his heart settles to a nice and steady rhythm that’s closer to being awake and ready to take on the world.

He needs to get off his butt and stop feeling sorry for himself. Very carefully he sits down and gets his t-shirt from the frame of the bed and puts it on, taking the opportunity to put on his brave face as well, in case he runs into one of the kids outside. No matter how much of a united front they had put up last night, Steve could tell they were worried about him, it was his job to help them dial it back down.

Danny stirs besides him and throws an arm to cover his eyes, he grumbles under his breath, not that Steve can hear it, but he knows it anyway. It’s such a Danno thing to do; hasn’t even woke up properly and he’s already ranting. Fondness softens Steve’s features as he drops a kiss into the patch of blond hair, careful not to jostle him as he gets out of bed and pads downstairs to make breakfast, checking on Nahele on his way to the kitchen.

The kid is sprawled on the couch all lanky limbs and drool on the pillow. He makes a mental note to figure out an actual bed for him; it’s not fair for any of the kids to have to shuffle around the house depending on who’s visiting. Grace already has a bedroom everyone recognises as her own, which she graciously lets Nahele use when he sleeps over; and Charlie has been bunking with her whenever it’s the two of them, but everyone needs their own space. Who knew the McGarrett home would be at full capacity again. Not Steve, that’s for sure.

He gets the coffeemaker going and starts lining up the ingredients. Oatmeal for everyone except Danny, who says it scrapes his stomach raw; he gets toast. Coffee for everyone, except Nahele who likes chocolate milk in the morning better, and Charlie, of course, because he sure as hell doesn’t need caffeine to start his day. Green slob (as Danny calls it) for himself and a big bowl of chopped fruits for the kids to squabble over. He decides to go overboard and throw in some blueberry pancakes. Cheering up in edible form; Danny’s favourite strategy. He makes sure there's enough of everything for a decent batch and starts whisking away.

Once the mix is done, he puts it aside and pulls out the mugs, frowning when he realises one of them was put away still dirty. He washes it perfunctorily thinking ahead of what he needs to do next. He paces the length of the kitchen a couple of times forgetting twice to take the butter from the fridge. He's gone from punchy to restless in less than an hour and his chest aches again. A wave of slight dizziness washes over him, his knees wobble. He grips the edge of the countertop hard and waits for the fuzziness to pass, breathing in series of four again. He’s not a hundred percent convinced combat breathing _is_ the best remedy for dizziness, but the familiarity of it helps. He suppresses the impulse to shake his head to clear it (learnt that one the hard way around), and he focuses on breakfast instead; he wants to serve the pancakes as close to hot as possible, so he’ll need to chop fruit first. Making sure to spread his legs a little wider for stability, he starts peeling.

 

**/18.2**

At some point in the middle of the contained chaos he’s creating— he’s missed the rubbish bin half a dozen times, but he keeps telling himself he’ll get it all later— Nahele’s unruly morning curls pop in, followed by a big sleepy frown on his forehead. Steve underlines on his mental notepad to get Nahele his own bed soon, the kid looks _rough_.

“Morning,” Steve says, his own voice sounding foreign to himself.

Nahele steps fully into the room and does a beeline for the bowl of pineapple, greeting a mumbled, “Hullo”, around a chunk of fruit. He pops another and then thumps Steve on the shoulder with his head.

“So, not a good morning?” One of Nahele’s stray curls sneaks under the collar of Steve’s t-shirt. He has to squirm a bit to dislodge it, tickling its way out. “Okay, kid I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but—”

“Yes, I kno’, I need a show’r— Who ‘as a leather couch in Hawaii anyway?” His voice reverberates through Steve’s sternum and he finds it odd to _feel_ rather than _hear_ Nahele’s complaint. He turns around to face him, angling his left ear forward. The kid looks upset, but Steve doesn’t really know how to make it better.

“It was my dad’s and yeah, I don’t know what he was thinking.” He wipes his hands on a kitchen towel and parks his butt to the edge of the counter. “It’s what we’ve got.”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Nahele shrugs one shoulder with nonchalance, “I mean, it’s just a place to sleep, right?”

Well, he thinks, going back to his initial thoughts after watching him sleeping all bent out of shape on the couch, now is a good a time as any, right?

“Look I wanted to talk to you about that.” Nahele practically jumps away from Steve, his posture shifting from sleepy to uneasy, and down to merely guarded in the blink of an eye. Steve can _tell_ the kid forces himself to relax. “It’s not— It’s not bad, Nahele, I swear. I think you need a room, like a proper bedroom, and I’m gonna need your input on that. I haven’t figured it out yet, just thought you would be more comfortable that way. You alright with that?”

Nahele looks at him with big round eyes and sniffles himself back into composure a couple of times. He can see the kid tries to speak, but can’t, his throat working overtime; he nods instead. A second later gratitude floods his eyes.

Steve drags Nahele close to his chest, making sure to press himself tight against the counter. The smell of fresh fruit wafts up to his nostrils, mixed closely with Nahele’s sleepy and sweaty scent. The kid’s ripe.

There’s rumbling on Steve’s chest and a few garbled sounds from Nahele, but he can’t make it into actual words in his head. The kid takes some distance from him, wipes his eyes and looks up. His cheeks are flushed.

“I’m gonna go…” he trails off, pointing upstairs.

“Yeah, you go do that, I’ll call breakfast in about twenty minutes.”

 

**/19**

He’s putting the final touches to their meal, on one hand trying to process Nahele’s reaction and on the other thinking about setting the table— hoping for someone to appear out of thin air and do it for him, but it’s still ‘early’ by Danny’s standards.

His mind inevitably wanders off to domestic matters; he’s not quite sure if he’s supposed to pay the water bill or if that was on Danny’s list. This being the first month living together changed many a thing in his monthly schedule and he’s not even sure if he has gotten around to cancelling the automatic payments on the cable and electric bills after all. Maybe he’ll get a chance to check it out later today, because trying to get money back from the companies is not an easy feature, case in point, a year ago, he screwed up a simple down-payment for new equipment at Five-0 and ended up unleashing Kono onto them, even after everything was settled and back in order, Kono had looked like she was ready to feed bullets to the company guy, or anyone who had the audacity of crossing her in even the most menial of tasks, never mind she actually managed to get the money back. He shudders at the memory. When he looks down he realises he’s stopped cooking, he blinks owlishly at his hands and gives half a mind to pick up a plate when a, “ _Hey, babe,_ ” makes him jump out of his skin, scrambling for purchase on a cabinet, lest he ends up flat on the floor.

Danny’s booming voice catches him completely off guard; he didn’t even hear him come down the stairs. His lover’s hands come up to his sides, soothing down his ruffled feathers, placing a hand on his forehead and sliding it to the back of his neck. The scent of his own shower gel wafts up to his nose. Danny’s been rummaging through his drawers again; this soap bottle wasn’t even in the shower yet. Cheeky bastard.

“You look a bit green ‘round the gills, you alright?”

His heart is already coming down to a normal beat, so, “Yeah, I'm fine, it's the vertigo, makes me,” Steve gestures with his hand to mean wobbly, “but I'm fine.”

Danny’s lower lip sticks out and he nods thoughtfully. Danny’s about to say something else when there’s a loud thump from upstairs. His lover rolls his eyes so hard, that for a second there it looks like he might sprain something.

“The kids are killin’ me Stev’n.” Danny thumps his head on Steve’s shoulder, pretty much the same way Nahele had a moment before. 

“Danno!” And _shit_ , that was crystal clear even for him, so it must have been _loud_.

“Looks like it’s all hands on deck,” Danny says, rising his eyebrows.

“Since when you do Navy speak?” Danny shrugs his shoulders, looking at the ceiling, probably keeping track of the kids’ argument. “Oh, so you _can_ learn. Good to know,” Steve adds, partly ignoring whatever civil war is developing upstairs. Instead, he sneaks a hand past Danny’s guard-dog stand and pats him on the butt, making him falter in his long-distance parental disapproval, but then he frowns at the ceiling again, and his posture goes from ‘ _let’s give it a minute’_ to ‘ _it better be over when I get there’_. And off he goes.

Danny marches to the bottom of the stairs, and morphs into his personal brand of stern-daddy mode; Steve hasn’t grown used to seeing this side of Danny, it is one thing to see him being a doting father, another one entirely to watch him cross his arms over his chest, heave a sigh and walk up the stairs with grim determination. As of late, putting Grace and Nahele in close proximity for longer than forty-eight hours tends to have explosive results. He and Mary were the same for a while.

Maybe it’s a McGarrett thing, he thinks, and then freezes. _When did he start thinking about the kids as McGarretts?_

He doesn’t get to dwell on this, as Charlie comes bouncing down the stairs and he barely has time to brace for a super special hug before he’s got an armful of Charlie hanging down from his neck.

“Hey, kiddo, help me set the table, yeah?” Charlie smiles and basically scales him down like a monkey from a tree; he goes into the kitchen without a word. He follows Charlie and puts the plates and cutlery within his reach, making sure not to overwhelm the boy with too many things to do at once.

 

**/20**

About ten minutes later, after everything is said and done, Nahele and Grace are both sulking and sitting at opposite sides of the kitchen table. Danny and Charlie are in between them, like a more talkative version of a demilitarised zone. Not that he can participate actively in that conversation, because all he hears is this animated sing-song voice he recognises at times as Charlie’s and a deeper rumble that’s distinctly Danny’s, but he only manages to pick up a few words, he feels deafer than yesterday and he didn’t think that was even possible, he’s supposed to be getting better, not the other way around. 

The plan for the day is basically tidy up, chill out and have an early Sunday cookout for dinner with the kids and the team. He needs to have Nahele back with the fosters before 9pm and Charlie and Grace are staying for the week, since Rachel is out on a business trip. Danny’s medical absence extending until next Tuesday allows them to spend some down time as a unit. A wave of dizziness hits him out of nowhere and for a fraction of a second, up is down and the table looks like a perfect place to rest his head in. He covers by leaning into the table and moving bits of his pancakes on his plate, his vision fraying at the edges too. Once he tunes back in, the first thing he’s made aware of is Nahele and Grace going at it again.

“I said I was sorry!” Grace shrieks. 

“You did not!” Nahele answers.

“Dad, you were there, tell him!”

“Whoa, whoa! Both of you need to dial it—”

“That wasn’t an apology; you just shrugg’d and said _thought you ‘ere done in there_.” He says this with the kind of obnoxious scowl only a teenager can accomplish without spraining something.

“Nahele, my man, you have every right to be upset, like I said before—” Something catches Danny’s eye, and he turns sharply to her daughter, “Grace Williams, you do not start with that young lady!” Grace does her signature ‘ _you’re so lame, dad’_ face and rolls her eyes, not denying anything, but certainly not apologising for it either. Nahele glares daggers at the side of her face and Charlie looks riveted by the power struggle developing in front of his eyes.

On his part, Steve’s getting a headache from the three-sided arguments, especially from Danny and Gracie’s brand of body language. He scrubs his face with both hands and presses on his eyes, firmly aggravating his migraine.

“Alright, alright, Gracie, Nahele, you guys know that I love you both to death, but please stop,” Steve says from behind his hands. The entire world pulsating around him.

“Umm, babe, you okay?” Danny asks, tone softer than before. “Come ‘ere.” He places a hand over his forehead, and peers into his eyes, a worried look marring his face. “You're hot.”

“Well yeah, I know I'm hot,” he tries for levity, but all he gets is Danny giving him _a look_ and probably making a clucking disapproving noise as well.

“That was bad, Steven, awful, really.” He sighs. “No, but seriously— Grace go get me the thermometer.”

“'ll go,” Nahele stands up and disappears to the second floor in the blink of an eye; before Steve can protest and turn down the unnecessary mother-henning. 

“Is ‘ncle ‘teve sick?” Charlie pipes up and Grace throws her brother a ‘ _you're so dense’_ look. “I mean, _more sick_?” he amends, talking into Steve’s direction, over enunciating every word.

“No!” Says Steve at the same time Danny says in a patient tone, “I don't know, baby. But don't you worry, okay?” Charlie seems to be having difficulty reconciling the split opinions, clasping his fingers tight in front of him and rubbing them together. Reaching a decision, the kid turns more fully into Danny and says something too quiet for Steve to hear, but it has the effect of melting all of Danny’s defences.

“Yes, of course—” says Danny.

“Family take care of each other. Remember?” Grace interrupts. Even though she's been more high-spirited than ever these past few months, she has her moments and Steve’s heart soars at the confidence her words inspire.

“Yes,” Charlie nods for good measure and starts working on his last pancake, letting Grace’s words sink in.

The moment shifts once Nahele comes back, thermometer in hand and a harried look on his face. It gets exponentially worse when Danny announces Steve has a fever of a hundred-and-three.

There goes his carefully planned weekend trying to convince the kids he’s alive and _well_.

Danny, on the other hand, takes it in a stride. “Okay, troop, you finish breakfast. I’ll go find us a sitter and, once that’s settled, Steve and I are taking a quick trip to the hospital.” He’s all no nonsense as he leaves the table, coffee mug in hand.

Grace looks like she’s about to protest, but thinks better of it and promptly swallows her words, she nudges Charlie into finishing his breakfast instead. Nahele on his part, silently clears his dishes and gets Steve a tall glass of water, placing it in front of him. Steve drinks it dutifully and shovels food in his mouth like he’s being paid for it, rearranging his ideas for Sunday ohana laziness in his head. God, he feels awful.

 

**/21**

Right after he finishes breakfast (it tasted like cardboard), he leaves the kids to do some tidying up, whilst he goes upstairs and takes a quick shower. Nahele had followed him to the bottom of the stairs, but before he could ask what the matter was, the kid had gone to the couch and started stripping it of the bedding he had used, and putting his things together. He shakes his head, regrets it and goes back to the task at hand: get into clean clothes. Once he’s clean and comfortable, he’ll take care of the rest.

In the bedroom, Danny’s doing crazy eyes at his phone, giving Steve a puzzled look as he enters. Steve returns the look and quickly dismisses it in favour of getting out of his clothes slow and steady. He sits heavy on the bed for extra balance, and shuffles out of his pyjama bottoms. It requires more effort than usual.

Somehow, he gets lost inside his t-shirt and groans in irritation. In less than two seconds, Danny’s hands come up on his torso, helping him negotiate his way out of his clothes.

“Babe,” he says, still clutching the phone on one hand, sliding the other underneath the cloth and pulling it over his head. Steve’s greeted by a fond smile and dreamy eyes. The moment, however, does not last, “Who do we know other than Molly?”

Not what he expected Danny to say, and also, _What? Molly?_

“Why?”

“She’s on a trip for school.”

 _Oh,_ Danny means the babysitter, rotten luck; good thing they have a back-up sitter. “What about other Molly?”

“What you _mean_ other Molly?” Danny gives him a _look_. “That _was_ other Molly,” he points out.

This is getting confusing. “And what happened with first Molly?”

“She got a job,” Danny says as he brushes his hair back, nervous.

“This conversation is giving me headache,” Steve says and mentally checks out of the exchange, leaving Danny to figure it out on his own. He pads naked and jittery to the bathroom and takes a couple of seconds to regroup against the shower stall, letting the warm water soothe his feverish skin.

A full minute later, Danny’s head pops inside the shower, a worried frown as he takes on Steve’s lack of movement. “Need a hand?” Steve snorts and makes a half-hearted attempt at shampooing his hair. He’s going way over his three-minute rule, but who cares, every now and then, he deserves to take some extra time.

Danny closes the curtain again, but doesn’t leave the room. Steve knows because he keeps track of the door, and it remains closed.

“Found a sitter?” He asks, noting he says it a bit too loudly. Danny says something back, but it’s impossible to hear it under the noise of the falling water. “What?!”

Danny’s head pops in from behind the curtain, his face is half-covered in shaving cream.

“I said no. Think we gonna have to leave Grace in charge and get Nahele back to the fosters.” Steve scowls at the idea, and Danny’s hand sneaks in and rinses his razor under the spray of water. Danny’s shirtless; he appreciates the view and the way those muscles ripple as he folds his arm back to him, but then, he immediately feels disappointed at the lack of response from his body. Danny catches his eye and gives him a fond look with a hint of understanding; he must be thinking something along the same lines. Steve goes back to rinsing his hair, making sure to splash some water into Danny’s direction.

“How about we take them?” Steve half muses out loud, half proposes to see where it leads.

“To the _hospital_? ‘xcuse me?” Danny looks affronted and his voice does the cartoonish-high-register thing, high enough his words go out of Steve’s hearing range, which Steve happens to find priceless. He covers the amused smile by turning around and working hair conditioner into his palms. Danny clears his throat and goes back to his ‘ _grandpa treatment’_ deep register. “Were you not present at this morning’s civil war? Take them to the hospital… Are you insane? Do you want two sulky teenagers and a four-year locked up within inches of each other?” Danny shakes his head. “Seriously though, that’s mine, hands off Danno’s expensive things,” Danny points to Steve’s hands with the razor, but doesn’t mean much by it, he goes back to shaving by memory and touch. Like Steve hadn’t noticed his own shower gel on him before, using his expensive conditioner is payback.

“What did Gracie do, anyway?” 

“Sure, ch’nge the su’ject,” Danny mutters. “Do you do that often? Use my stuff? It’s running out quicker than before,” he starts ranting and stops as he reaches the upper lip area, finishing the first swipe before he adds, “Gracie— she flushed the toilet when he was still in the shower, which… ugh, I don’t even…” He scrunches his eyes closed.

Steve doesn’t even want to know where Danny’s mind goes sometimes.

“Mary used to do that to me,” Steve comments, taking a quick trip down memory lane, “fun times.” Mary used to be a real prank monster; she managed to empty a bucket of ice water on him once. “You missed a spot there,” he points out and splashes his lover’s face, making sure to make a mess of his hair.

“Steven!” Danny protests and Steve laughs in response, making and undignified noise with his throat. He ends up coughing and must concentrate on getting his breathing under control again. Danny is not amused. “Yeah, yeah. Finish your shower, would you? You look like death warmed over already.” Danny retreats to the sink, presumably to finish shaving.

Steve’s feels a lot better once he steps out of the shower stall; refreshed, even after the coughing fit. He starts towelling off, careful to dry his ears, realising he forgot - _again-_ to put on earplugs or something, as to not get them wet.

Danny’s almost done redoing his hair. Still shirtless. Steve allows himself another couple of seconds of disappointment that are rudely interrupted when Danny launches back into their conversation without preamble or warning.

“But you know what really bothers me? She went into the bathroom when he was still in there. She used to have a better sense of boundaries. She used to be _polite_ , you know? It’s like a twisted version of preschool hair-pulling, the fourteen-year old version of it, anyway.”

Steve’s eyes widen in a comical way at Danny’s direction. He hurries and all but flees the bathroom, back into the room and a clean change of clothes. Did Danny really imply Grace and Nahele are crushing on each other? Shit, that’s… Child Protective Services would probably sic on him like demons from hell, they basically made him leave his soul as collateral before allowing Nahele overnight visits. Shit. Shit. _Shit_.

Two minutes later, Danny strolls into the room with a smirk on his lips.

“For the record, I wasn’t going there, I admit it was not the best choice of words, but whatever, I’ll talk with her later.” Steve shoulders come back down and the tension from his back eases a bit. “I think she’s just adjusting to having him around more often and the whole Rachel thing doesn’t help much. You, on the other hand, are hilarious my friend. Wait until they come home with actual dates, I would love to see your reaction then.” 

He doesn’t want his mind to go there; his stomach churns in anxiety just trying to conjure up the full idea in his head. How does Danny manage to sleep at night? He had never pegged himself as a worrier, but ever since their relationship got serious and he got more involved in their every day’s lives, his mind goes to progressively stranger and worrisome places. And not just Gracie, who in his eyes will forever be a very grown up eight-year old. No; he worries about Charlie and his health, and he worries about Nahele and everything that could possibly ever hurt him too.

Danny does ‘ _come here_ ’ grabby hands at him and says, “Babe, you have aneurysm face. Relax, would you?”

Steve goes without needing to be called again, a sheepish smile replacing the firm press of his lips; he lets Danny pet him once or twice. This is yet another thing he didn’t predict when they got together, this roller-coaster of emotions. After a moment, he collects himself. He’s starting to feel sick again, so he better gets moving.

“What if Grace stays here with Charlie and we take Nahele?” He asks Danny, “that way he won’t miss the cookout later and they spend some time apart to cool off.”

Danny smiles with his eyes.

“Yeah, I was thinking the same. Ready to go?”

No, he isn’t, because he still doesn’t want to go, but it’s best to get it over with as soon as possible. Steve grabs his wallet and a thin long-sleeved shirt from the dresser on his way out.

 

  [](http://archiveofourown.org/users/3226629)

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

**/22**

“Yeah, that’s ‘n infection,” Dr Lee says, close enough he can feel his breath rustling the back of his neck. The doc puts away the otoscope and rounds the gurney, standing in front of him; he then palpates his glands from ears to under his jaw and down the neck. “It’s pretty swoll’n up.” His eyebrows lift, he takes some distance from Steve and looks directly at him as he says, “Can you turn your head from side to side for me. Slow. Do it slow and don’t force it.” Steve does as he’s told. “Does it hurt to move?”

“No,” he rasps out. The AC from the hospital makes his throat scratchy.

“How long have you had the fever?”

“Umm, a couple of hours I guess? I woke up feeling funny.”

“Alright,” he grabs his stethoscope from the pocket of his coat and puts it on, signalling Steve to take off his t-shirt. “Let’s see, deep breath in.” Steve inhales deeply and immediately notes the constricted feeling in his chest. “And out. Again. Okay, cough.” He does and once it catches on, it’s hard to stop. “Alright, alright. That’s enough.” Once Steve’s coughing fit subsides he asks “Does it hurt when you take deep breaths?” Steve shakes his head.

The doc motions for him to inhale again and taps on his back, motions for him to release and taps again.

“Any disco’fort?”

“No,” he rasps out.

“Okay, get dress’.” He motions for him to join him at the desk on the other side of the curtain.

Steve shrugs his t-shirt back on and yawns from the very bottom of his soul, his energy is running low again.

Dr Lee waits for him to sit down before saying, “When did you take the gauze off?” He mimics taking something flat off his own ear, as if to illustrate.

“Same day I went home.” The doc gives him a chastising stare.

“Have you covered your ears in the shower?” Steve ducks his head and shakes ‘no’. “Anything else you would like to mention now?”

Steve looks at him puzzled, because, well, no, what else is there to say?

“Okay, Commander, I’m gonna lev’l with you, the ear infection is one thing, pro’bly brought on by water lodge’ in your middle ear. But I’m more worried about your chest. I see no reason to be getting worse, unless you aspirated vomit at some point, in which case, we need more tests, to figure out what is the best course of treatment.”

“Oh,” he says and Dr Lee narrows his eyes, probably because Steve just made a face that roughly translates to ‘ _please, don’t shoot me’_ , and then promptly tells him about his little swim in the ocean a couple of days ago. Dr Lee quietly fumes through the entire retelling, shaking his head once or twice in clear disapproval.

After the doctor chews him out for not taking proper care of himself, he goes into his diagnosis: acute otitis media –a middle ear infection—and also an upper respiratory tract infection, because why do things halfway, and also because he irritated the heck out of his throat and bronchial tract with salt water.

“It says on your record you are not currently on antibiotics. Is that correct?”

“Correct, sir.”

“Any known allergies?”

“No, sir.”

“Okay, then. One pill, twice a day for ten days. Think you can manage that?” Steve nods. “Good, it’s an order too. Take’em with food, stay away from the sun.” He hands him a script and Steve stands up hurriedly, but Dr Lee lifts his open hand to stop him and then points down. Steve sits down so fast his bum hurts.

The doctor rummages on one of his desk drawers and takes a cotton ball out and then a jar of Vaseline, promptly demonstrating how to open it, take apart the cotton ball and dab a piece into the petroleum jelly. Giving Steve a tight-lipped smile, he then takes an anatomical model of an ear and stuffs it with the waterproof ball of cotton, making sure to highlight how the cotton stays outside the ear canal, doing a wee flourish in the end.

“Yes, sir. Understood.” He asks for permission to stand without actually asking, but the doc won’t dismiss him yet.

“No, Commander. You are legendary for not takin’ precautions when asked. I must stress you take it seriously. You only got an infection because you were careless and this is no playing matter. An infection affects the way the edges of your ruptured eardrum heal; it’s the difference b’tween healing, and a huge scar, and then having to go in for surgery to see if we can repair the damage. You could end up losing up to eighty-percent of your hearing on that ear if you don’t take proper care of it. Are we clear?”

He nods solemnly.

The doctor’s warnings ring loud in his ears -metaphorically speaking- all the way back to Danny and Nahele on the waiting room.

As he’s about to round the corner he can see Nahele laughing; this sort of toothy smile he has as he tries to cover his mouth, but the snorting sounds just keep on coming, Steve loves that face, his kid’s spirit, that sound. He misses that sound.

It takes a lot for Nahele to loosen up and he’s glad he can do that with Danny. On his part, Danny keeps talking to Nahele like he’s insisting on something, with wide hand gestures and a huge smile tugging on his lips, he’s trying to make Nahele squeal in delight. Which, for the record, it can be done, it takes a while, and it doesn’t happen as often as it should, but when it does, his laughs brighten up the entire room.

Danny’s the first to see him, giving him a subtle nod towards Nahele as if to say _Can you believe this guy?_ And he smiles in return.

 

**/23**

The ride back seems a lot faster than the ride in. Having Danny push a sandwich and a bottle of water at him so he can take the first dose of antibiotics also helps. Nahele keeps eyeing him warily every time he breaks off a piece and passes it off to him, but munches happily on the bits all the same, until Danny says, “Hey, sailor boy, stop passin’ off you’ food to the boy, he got his own sandwich too.” Danny’s driving and Steve took the back seat to ride with Nahele.

“The driver’s not supposed to address his clients. Carry on, _James_ ,” he shoots playfully and he can read in Danny’s hunched stance how much he wishes he could flip him off right now. “Plus, he’s growing, he needs it more than I do.”

Danny grumbles something under his breath and Nahele starts laughing, his entire frame shaking with glee.

Steve arches an eyebrow at the kid, looking down on him.

“See if I give you more of my food for that,” he exclaims, “you traitor.” And then breaks half of his remaining sandwich and passes it off to him. Nahele resumes munching with barely restrained content. 

 

**/23.2**

The driveway is almost full. There’s one space obviously reserved for the Camaro, though. Lou’s big ass SUV is behind Steve’s truck. Chin’s motorcycle on a corner, Kono’s car blocking Lou’s. Jerry’s van at the very entrance of the house. Yup, full house.

Danny gets off the car and slides the seat forward to let Nahele out, followed closely by Steve.

“You forgot my tip,” Danny says as he nudges Steve to the side of the car, which he’s grateful for, the dizziness is coming back with a vengeance after travelling on the back of the car and he needs something to lean on as he adjusts to being on his feet again. Danny puts the seat back into position and Nahele idles (trying to look like he’s not) on the other side of Steve.

“Come ‘ere kid, I’m gonna need you to walk inside,” Nahele’s eyes go round for a split second, before his hands shoot forward and grab Steve by the arm. He’s being so careful, it’s as if he’s not touching Steve at all. “I’m not going to break, keiki, I just need the support so I don’t end up on my face, if you think I’m going down, push me so I end up on my butt, think you can do that?”

Nahele nods sheepishly, his eyes alight with the fiery conviction that he would not let Steve fall at all. Danny follows, bag of pills in hand, hiding a pleased grin.

The door opens as they reach it, revealing Samantha Grover, who’s sporting a thousand-megawatt smile. For Steve it’s obvious her greeting is cheerful and very welcoming, but he hears almost nothing. Renee comes behind her and shoos him to the lanai with a lot of hand gestures and disapproving looks, until he finds himself seated with a glass of mango juice in his hands. Danny comes a minute later, with a hoodie in one hand and a glass of juice in the other.

Steve eyes the hoodie. It’s his, the one he sometimes uses when it’s stormy cold outside, or he’s getting out of the ocean after a swim. It had been living at the backboard of his bed these past few days.

“I’m not cold,” Steve says.

“I figured. I was going to ask first, but Renee manhandl’d me ‘ere before I c’uld. I grabb’d it just in case, ‘n’ your painkill’rs.” He deposits the amber container in his hand.

The lanai looks beautiful. He reckons every available chair is outside, placed in a casual array around the yard. The table has a heap of plates and cutlery, and easily a dozen glasses on one side; he likes his tableware, it looks lived-in, scuffed by the happy memories of their gatherings.

Jerry’s wrangling a couple of beach umbrellas across the sand and placing them near some of the chairs; he’s going to have to reinforce them a bit so they don’t topple over. Jerry lifts his eyes and searches the place until his eyes land on Danny and Steve, and gives them a little wave; he must have sensed Steve was judging him from afar.

Meanwhile, Will and Nahele are putting string lights on the deck, well, they’re mostly goofing around and shoving at each other, until Renee comes by and gives them _The Eye_ , and then they both scramble to finish hanging the last set of lights.

Grace and Samantha are carrying juice and snacks to the table, both looking relaxed and excited to see each other. Chin comes in between them with a much-too-heavy, beer-filled cooler, doing the whole ‘walking fast because this thing is surely going to fall over’ routine. The girls laugh, leave the food on the table and go back to the kitchen, never once stopping their conversation. He can’t help observing Grace’s way of talking with her hands (always more pronounced when she’s been around Danny for a while) and think of her father, who’s holding his hand over the arms of the chairs, his thumb idling drawing circles on Steve’s wrist.

“It’s coming along nicely,” Danny comments, his voice a bit murky and deeper than before. Steve figures his throat must be bothering him again.

“Danny?”

“Mmmm?”

Steve leans over and kisses him, the affectionate kind. The kind that says ‘ _have I told you that I love you today?_ ’. Danny squeezes the back of his neck; ‘ _yeah? I love you too_ ,’ and slips his fingers under the collar of his t-shirt. They don’t often kiss in public, PDA is not common and it rarely goes beyond hand holding, he tries not to think too hard about that, though, too afraid he might start unravelling something about himself he won’t be able to put back together afterwards.

There’s a loud whistle coming from somewhere (impossible to tell where, because the difference in hearing between his ears makes him want to say that _all_ noises come from the left), and then, there’s a shrill sort of yelp that he’s sure is Kono catcalling them —or Danny specifically; _those two—_ for the kiss they just shared. Danny hides for a second in Steve’s neck and seizes the chance to plant a tickle of a peck in there.

When they look up again, they’re surrounded by their smiling ohana. Nahele and Will are done with the lights, staring wide-eyed in Kono’s direction as they obviously haven’t had the pleasure of hearing that sort of comment coming from her before. Kono has a lopsided grin going on, as Chin shakes his head at her side, taking a whiff out of her beer bottle. Lou hugs Renee and gives her a sweet peck on the cheek by the grill. And Grace puts the final touches on the table, doing her best to ignore her embarrassing dad and boyfriend.

He loves these people.

He can feel himself relax into the back of the chair, searching the lanai one more time with his eyes, ending with a soulful look into Danny’s eyes. His boyfriend raises his eyebrows as if asking _‘everything fine?’_ and then the moment is broken when Lou loudly announces the hamburgers are ready.

 

**/23.3**

People are talking and having fun. Nahele is helping Charlie find sea monsters, Gracie and Samantha are swimming on the shallows, and Will’s snoozing on the hammock. Steve’s doing something akin to dozing in his chair, under the shade of a beach umbrella, though he will not call it napping, even under the threat of death. Danny’s off somewhere putting some order to the house, until Renee finds him and drags him back to the lanai, glaring him into resting some more.

He catches Kono, Chin and Adam talking somewhat removed from everybody else. Kono looks mellow, which is a word he would never freely associate with his friend. Something is going on with her, has been for a while, but apparently, Steve’s the odd one out, people are no longer walking on eggshells around him, but there seems to be some tiptoeing around Kono. Adam rubs her arm affectionately and gives her a sideways hug, while Chin gives an approving nod, Kono protests with her eyes, and Adam hugs her harder. He wishes he knew what all of this is about, but Danny has not said a word about it, and truth to be told, they’ve had their hands full lately (and are about to be fuller with Grace and Charlie staying over for the week).

There’s a loud laugh that he assumes is coming from Nahele by the way his head is thrown back and his hands linked behind his head. Charlie laughs as well, though he can’t hear him, and he was only able to hear the first explosion of laughter from Nahele, and nothing much afterwards.

He can’t imagine his life being like this forever. He would eventually get used to it, out of necessity, of course, but he’d miss so many important things, like his kids laughs, their conspiratorial whispers in the middle of the afternoon, when they’re plotting their way to make Danny take them out for dinner, or how to circumvent his downright dictatorial approach to homework.

He surprises himself with that memory, realising he’s been present for those exchanges many times before, even when Danny hadn’t made this house his permanent residence. He hadn’t taken the time to appreciate how much he cherished Danny with a pencil in hand, going over Nahele’s or Gracie’s homework, giving out hugs and praises like he got them from a bottomless well and there was always more where they came from.

It’s hard not to think about Gracie and Charlie as his own, not that they belong to him, but in the way that, not being able to be around them, would feel like not being able to breathe; Grace has been a constant in his life right after Danny introduced them to each other at Kukui’s football game, and now Charlie, introduced into their life in a very dramatic way of his own, but very much welcome all the same.

It’s different with Nahele, it is both better and worse; he adores the boy, affection sits deeply in his bones for him, but he isn’t even his foster-father; he’s on a list of approved visitors, he’s on the good graces of his actual foster-parents, he has been vetted by a couple of social workers and is allowed to take Nahele every other weekend, that’s it. It _feels_ like Nahele is his own, but nothing could be further from the truth. If something were to happen, Steve would be nothing more than a nice memory and a good anecdote for the social workers to remember him by. The thing is, though, from the moment the kid sat down in his office, a longing, he didn’t know he could feel, had taken over him, to the point he thought about him constantly. Had he eaten today, was he doing well in school, had he made friends, did he need more clothes, comic books, candy, anything at all? It was a feeling that refused to budge, but what could he do about it, other than make sure Nahele was comfortable with his ohana? It might feel like Nahele was as vital to his life as his own heart, but there was nothing official that said so, or anybody to back him up if the need arose.

Kono breaks away from Adam and Chin, and goes into the house through the sliding doors of his dad’s office and Steve seizes his moment, he’ll hardly get another one, not today anyway.

He catches her just as she’s coming out of the upstairs bathroom; he had strategically jammed the door from the one downstairs after lunch.

Kono catches his eye and deflates at the decisiveness she sees there. She mumbles something under her breath, but he barely catches the movement of her lips, though he figures it must be an expletive of some kind.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

“Geez, boss, never one to beat aroun’ the bush, huh?”

“Not much, no.”

She leans on the frame of the door, mulling over her answer, he presumes.

“Do we have to talk about it ‘ere?”

Steve looks behind him, to the hall and the open door that leads to his bedroom.

“We can go to my room if you prefer?”

Kono snorts and leads the way, turning around to say, “Danny says you ‘ave an infecti’n on top of everythin’ else.”

“It’s true,” he plops down at the foot of the bed and follows Kono with his eyes, who’s pacing around the room, all restless energy.

“So, how are you, Steve? Like, _really_.” She bites her lip.

He shrugs his shoulders, “That’s exactly what I was going to ask. Are you having problems at work? Is Adam being blackmailed or something? _Are you?_ ”

“No, no, Stev’ I’m fine, Adam’s bor’d, but super fine, relax, it’s nothin’ really, I’m just…” she trails off.

“You’re just?” He presses on.

“It’s stupid.” She stops pacing, looking out the window.

Borrowing a line from Danny’s book, he says, “it’s not stupid if it’s got you all worked up.”

Kono makes a face, “now you sound like Danny,” she moans.

“Yeah, well…” he shrugs his shoulders, he’s not about to deny he’s learnt a lot from Danny when it comes to having important conversations with unwilling people. “Are you going to tell me or do I have to go over your head to Chin and Adam? I mean, I’m not above going to Danny too, but I would rather save myself from the rant and the lecture I’m gonna get.”

Her eyes suddenly fill with tears and he finds himself grossly unapt for the job.

“I’m ‘rry,” she strangles out, already drying her eyes, looking embarrassed and in pain at the same time. He reaches out to her, but she flinches away. “It’s so stup’d, it’s not lik’ I’m still a rooki’, but seein’ y’u guys in ther’, layin’ on the ground, I tho’ght you ‘ere _dead_.” Steve can tell she’s doing an effort to keep her words straight. “There was blood, ‘n’ smok’, ‘n’ Da’ny went in‘ere ‘n’ dragg’d you out on his own, ‘cause I was froz’n, Steve, I couldn’t move and what if…” she breaks down in heart-wrenching sobs and sits down heavily on his side. He doesn’t really need to hear more, he wraps an arm around her shoulders and pulls her in under his chin.

He gently rocks them both, swaying to non-existent melody. His throat feels scratchy and his chest hurts, but he knows what this is about.

“Kono. You’re not the first nor will you be the last to freeze in a situation like that.” A few of his own mishaps come to mind, back when he was nothing but a green officer on his first commission. “You’ve seen me and everybody else in the team bloody and on the brink of collapse, but to my recollection this is the first time you’ve been present when it actually happens. Yeah?” He shakes her a little bit, to get some response. She nods. “It’s hard to think when something like that happens.”

“I _know_ ,” she rants, like she’s been debating this very point with herself the whole time since it happened, she probably has.

“Let me— just— let me tell you a story, okay?”

“Is this ‘ _share your fuck-up story time’_? Boss? Really?” She asks, incredulous.

“Can I at least get started before you shoot me down? Jesus, I liked it better when I could just order people around and be done with it,” he half-jokes back, trying to lighten the mood.

Kono takes a shuddering breath and nods for him to go on, sobering again. He gives her one last appraising look and takes a deep breath, he can do this.

“The Humvee I was riding in broke down and the guys from the other vehicle in our convoy had to come fix it. It was an easy fix, but we still had to get off the trucks and secure the perimeter, then hell’s fire rained on us. I spotted the building it was coming from, so a part of my unit and I broke off to sweep up the insurgents. There were a lot of rooms upstairs, mostly empty; my gee-jay was left in charge of a room with civilians, and I went off to clear another room.” Kono straightens; a look of trepidation on her face. “It was a mess in there, but nobody seemed to be moving, so I cleared it and both my gee-jay and my sarge came in, started searching the dead, trying to figure out what kind of attack this was, I turn around and see some movement… behind a wall-rug.” Kono untangles herself from Steve, and gives him a worried stare, waiting for him to finish. “A rifle comes up, and I freeze. It was my third tour by then, not a rookie by all accounts, but I couldn’t…” He takes a shuddering breath, trying to shake himself out of the sensory memory of that day. “My guys didn’t stand a chance. One of them died on the spot and the other died on the medevac, ten minutes out of hospital.

“It sucks that it happens, Kono, but it happens every now and then, and you use it to make sure next time you find yourself in a tight spot, you’re in the moment a hundred per cent to do your job.”

Kono sniffles, linking her arm into his, her chin tucked in low.

“I’m sorry that happened, Steve.”

“I’m sorry it happened to you too, Kono.”

 

**/24**

He can’t believe it’s already Monday, it feels like a lifetime ago he was stuck in a hospital bed too afraid to move as to not anger his vestibular system. But, no matter how much he had pestered Chin and Lou yesterday, about giving him _something_ , _anything to do_ , Lou had laughed and walked away and Chin had shaken his head in amusement, compelling him to enjoy the down time. “ _R and R is just as important as the op,_ ” Chin had said, followed by a “ _hear, hear_ ,” from Danny. Not to mention the talk with Kono had kind of drained him. The rest of the evening had gone by too fast, and before he knew it, everybody was going home.

Monday morning has found him and Danny cuddled in the middle of the bed, Danny’s chest hairs a pleasant tickle on his face. It takes him a moment too long to get his bearings, his ears both feel stuffy and he’s a bit too warm for comfort, but not running a fever, which is expectable (according to further caring instructions Dr Lee personally e-mailed after he left the hospital). He hasn’t had another bout of vertigo in days, but he feels at the edge of it most of the time.  Last night, he had finally thrown a leg off the bed, planting it firmly on the floor to convince his body he wasn’t in an aimless boat in the middle of the Pacific. Danny had chuckled and passed him one single sock from his night table. Steve took one look at it and huffed in annoyance, even if he was grateful for the forethought, he wasn’t about to show it. Danny chuckled some more

 

[](http://archiveofourown.org/users/3226629)

 

He blows a lazy raspberry into his lover’s chest and Danny caresses his hair, dropping a kiss on the crown of his head, murmuring something (he figures, by the rumbling on his chest), but unintelligible to his ears still. Danny’s hand goes from his neck to his back and up again, blunt fingernails scratching his skin.

Danny’s chest rumbles once again and this time he can make out the gist of it.

“Yeah, I’m awake,” he answers, feeling the words scratch their way up his throat.

“Hey, babe, ‘ise ‘n’ shine. I need to get Charlie.”

He inhales deeply, forcing himself to alertness. “I thought Renee was picking them up and driving them to school.” 

“Yeah, but some’ne needs to feed’im, cloth’im and— would you just get off me, please? It’s getting late.”

“Bitch, bitch, bitch,” he says as he rolls away, freeing Danny to get on with it. His stomach rumbles.

Danny rounds the bed, positioning himself to his eye level. “Go get ready for breakfast.”

“But I always—”

“I know, babe, but you’re sick today. I’ll do breakfast, you make sure Charlie puts together his stuff for school, yeah?” He drops a peck to his forehead and he surrenders back into the warm space Danny was occupying until a few seconds ago,

He hums into the pillow and carefully straightens and stretches. “Okay, I’m up,” he says, belatedly noting the room is empty and Danny has already gone downstairs.

Getting the kids ready for school is surprisingly easy. No matter what people say —and he was initially surprised at how many people had an _opinion_ about Danny’s parenting skills, especially in conjunction with his relationship status— but Danny and Rachel have raised well behaved and thoughtful children, even if one of them is going through major life issues adjustments and Gracie’s grades have suffered for it, along with a distinctive rebellious streak that rears its head every now and then, nothing too serious, thankfully. He’s aware that Rachel and Danny have talked about taking her to a psychologist so she can have a more appropriate outlet for her anger and disappointment, but they have yet to find one and crunch the numbers for payments, their budgets are still adjusting to Rachel’s possible-probable oncoming divorce and Danny’s child-support, not to mention Charlie’s treatment, that sure as hell put a huge dent on the family budget, even if Stan picked up the bill for the most part.

“Alright, buddy, up an’ at ‘em,” he says, shaking the boy’s foot. Grace is already in the bathroom and her school bag is on the desk chair.

Charlie’s face scrunches up and his lips move, probably asking for a little more time.

“No can’t do, buddy, today you’re catching a ride with the Grovers, you have to wake up, come on,” he scoops Charlie up into his arms, and carries him to the bathroom attached to the master room. “Come on, kiddo,” he jiggles him a bit, but Charlie just burrows further into his neck. Williams morning person to a tee. _Geez._

Steve gets the water taps going on the sink and tries to hold onto Charlie at the same times he washes his face. That seems to wake him up enough to give him a surprised look. “Yeah, buddy, come on, we have to wash up for breakfast. He puts Charlie down on the floor, now finally able to stand up on his own steam, and helps him soap up his hands. What the hell was he eating last night? Danny made a whole deal of bathing him the night before, after the cookout, but the kid’s hands are sticky up to his wrists.

“What were you doing last night, kiddo, baking a cake?”

Charlie laughs and shakes his head, his smile stretching from ear to ear. Okay, something happened last night. Definitely.

“I need to pee!” The kid pipes up suddenly, and Steve takes his leave, waiting just outside the door. Charlie’s hair is still sticking out on the back, a nice pillow imprint dividing his nape in two, and he needs to smooth that out before presenting him to Danny for inspection.

Charlie blows past him in direction of the door, Steve does a double take and tries to run after him, but relents after realising moving at warp speed is a _no-no_ right now, he never wants to feel dizzy in his life again.

On his way to the kitchen he notes the bathroom door is now open and Gracie’s is closed, at least they’re on time on that front.

Danny comes into view and Charlie is half-blocked by the table. His lover’s hands are balled up at his hips, giving a mock-frown down to his son.

“You did your own hair today, babe?” He’s being loud for Steve’s benefit. Charlie peeks around a chair and points directly at Steve.

“Uh, no, not me, you ran on me there. He ran on me,” he repeats looking at Danny.

“Yeah, yeah, ‘xcuses, ‘xcuses,” he says as he runs a hand on his kid’s hair, without making a dent on it. He sighs in resignation and goes back to pour milk on their respective mugs.

Steve picks Charlie up and puts him on a chair, the kid’s not even wearing shoes, they’re way behind schedule here.

“Wher’s G’ace?” The kid turns to him for an answer.

“She’s getting ready, buddy,” Danny places a cup of milky coffee in front of Steve, and a bowl of cereal in front of his son. “Both of you now, eat up.” Danny then gives him a weird look and says, “didn’t I tell you to wash up too?” A teasing smile unfurls on his face. Steve tugs his mug closer, just in case.

Danny comes back with his own breakfast and a couple of sandwiches on a plate. Butter and turkey ham, _damn_ , back to hospital-grade food.    

As soon as Charlie’s done eating, Danny stuffs the rest of his sandwich in his mouth and drains his mug, urging Charlie to get going quick-quick- _quick_.

“Such elegance, such grace, Danno.” Danny flips him off behind his back, as he follows Charlie upstairs to finish getting ready.

He munches happily on his sandwich, giving it a lazy couple of bites, until he remembers he was in charge of Charlie’s backpack and then he wishes he could take stairs two at a time without risking vertigo.

 

**/24.2**

After they close the door on the kids, Steve feels exhausted. An unpleasant antibiotic aftertaste on his tongue and a tingling sensation in his legs that he chalks up to being cooped up for too long. Danny leans into him and he can feel him sigh besides him.

“Go back to bed?” He offers. Danny’s eyebrows rise in surprise.

“What do ya kno’, he can be train’d,” he says as he snuggles up into Steve’s side. “Yeah, let’s rest for a bit, but I gotta warn you, big guy, there’s a mess in the upstairs bathroom and a lot more laundry than you remember ever doing in your life.”

“How?” Steve moans, following Danny up the stairs, “Charlie’s tiny!”

Danny snorts in laughter. “Serio’sly? He change’ clothe’ more of’en than a runway model, and Grace? That girl looks at a piece of clothing once and it end’ up in the wash, and then there’s me and you, pal, but mostly you.”

“At least my clothes don’t require any ironing,” he comments to Danny’s back.

Not missing a beat, Danny stops in the middle of the stairs, turning, he says, “true, not that _you_ iron any of _my_ clothes, but true.”

Steve chuckles and pushes gently on Danny’s lower back to get him going again. They drag themselves back to the bedroom and collapse in bed. This day promises to be a hot one, _again_ , and the room is already heating up to the sticky point.

 

**/25**

They end up doing some strategic tidying up and two laundry loads. Steve was supposed to tidy up the upstairs bathroom, but at some point, he had sat down on the couch to catch his breath and ended waking up to Gracie’s gentle shake of his sock-clad foot and the smell of dinner being served.

On Tuesday, they do it all over again.

 

**/26**

“I wanna to go back to work,” he mumbles into Danny’s chest.

The kids are on their beds, and so are they. Charlie had come home with an invitation for a birthday party in his little backpack and a good chunk of dinner time had been dedicated to elaborate on his excitement. Gracie had hummed and nodded on all the right bits, then declared school was the same as usual. Danny had given him one look that clearly transmitted to Steve to ‘ _zip it_ ’ and ‘ _not to worry_ ’, he had heeded Danny’s warnings and not asked any further.  

“What?” Danny asks, straining to see Steve’s face.

He looks up into Danny’s clueless eyes… and _well_ , isn’t _this_ is nice for a change.

“I _said_ I want to go back to work tomorrow.” He thumps his head back into Danny’s chest with a humph.

“Awww, you’re so cute when you’re delusional,” Danny mocks, burying his fingers in Steve’s hair, tracing the curves of his head down to his nape and back up again. “You need a nap to finish your day, Steven, over my dead body you’re going back to work.”

“Bullshit I don’t need to have a nap.”

“Oh, so I didn’t clock you snorin’ yesterday and today aroun’ four? Who do you think keeps tuckin’ a blanket over you?”

Steve whines into Danny’s nipple, causing him to ripple his muscles under him, it feels nice and cosy, like a promise of better times to come. He hums into it again.

Danny digs his fingertips into his neck and gives him a light shove. “Cut it out, it tickle’.”

“Take it back. I don’t take naps, I doze off, at most.”

Danny’s hearty laugh vibrates through him all the way to his belly. Makes him want to burrow further into Danny, and since there’s nothing stopping him, he does.

“Reality sucks, babe. Still not goin’ to work tomorrow, plus, you come cheaper than hirin’ a nanny to watch Charlie in the aft’rnoon.”

“Okay,” he was not about to pass in the opportunity of spending a little one-on-one time with Charlie, but still, “How about something that’s not house-based?”

Danny throws his hands in the air, jostling him enough to make him move from Danny’s chest to his neck, pushing his body flush to his lover’s side.

“Go get your truck detail’,” Danny proposes and Steve grunts his response into his neck. “ _What?!_ ” Danny sounds alarmed. Steve chuckles, he could make a game out of this in the future.

“Give me another idea,” he says.

“I’m not your magic eight ball.” Danny gives an indignant huff, though he feels it more than he hears it. “Okay, how about this. Grace’s school starts forty-five minutes before Charlie’s. I was going to drive around with him after dropping Gracie off, but the team could really use me bright and early tomorrow, so… why don’t you take him?”

Steve levers himself on his elbows, hovering right over Danny’s chest to visually confirm what he just said. If he understood correctly. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure you don’t want to spend that half an hour or so with him instead?”

“Are you sayin’ you don’t want to spend time with my perfect _son_?” Danny takes his own pillow and socks him squarely on the back, hard enough he felt it, but not hard enough to destabilise him. He plays it up, though, leaning on his side and rising both hands, he backs off until his butt edges the mattress and threatens to go over.

“I’ll take him, no problem, what time do you want him there?”

“Nine. C’mere befor’ you fall fo’ real,” Danny drags him back on top of him and kisses him.

 

**/27**

“Alright, babe,” Danny sweeps into the room, taking the scene of Steve playing with Charlie in stride and saying, “you need to be at the preschool at nine, you hear me? Nine. Don’t be late.”

“ _God_ , Danny,” Steve could _burst_ with the frustration of having to hear the ‘ _be on time, McGarrett’_ spiel for the nth time, “stop it, you’ve said it a thousand times! I was in the fu— _friggin’_ Navy,” he amends, eyeing Charlie to make sure he didn’t notice him almost slip. He didn’t. “I know how to be punctual.”

Danny smirks, _the fucker;_ a twinkle in his eye. “I wasn’t talkin’ to you, mister sensitive, I was talkin’ with my buddy here. So, _Charlie_ ,” he continues, “nine sharp, it’s your job to make sure you guys make it, a’right? Don’t let ‘im drop you off half an hour early, you hear me? Can I trust you with that kind of respons’bility?”

Charlie smiles a sweet toothy grin and nods eagerly, extending his arms to be picked up by Danny. Once settled at his dad’s hip, he gives him a tight hug and a ginger kiss on his cheek. In the middle of that, Gracie walks to the top of the stairs from her room, going down as she reads something on her phone, just before she reaches the landing, she makes a pained face and races back upstairs. Danny stares at the spot where she stopped, he doesn’t even try to understand. Meanwhile, Charlie loses interest quickly, wriggling in his dad’s arms to be put down.

“What? You want out already? You tradin’ me for what, the floor? I have to go to work and you’re already bondin’ with this lug here?” Charlie hugs Danny’s leg and laughs. Danny ruffles his hair and laughs too. Gracie appears at the top of the stairs again, her school bag in one hand, her cell in the other and says something unintelligible to which both Danny and Charlie smile even wider to. Steve feels drawn to their smiling faces like a moth to the light, he’s beaming as well, a soft sort of dreamy fondness expanding within, warming him from the inside out.

“Alright, people,” Danny places a hand on Steve’s crossed arms to stabilise himself. It feels warm to the touch. “I have to go.” He looks down at Charlie still wrapped around his leg. “You going too? You want to run a special task force?” Charlie shakes his head. “No? Well then, glad that’s settled. Danno can’t be late, I’m the boss now, I have to take the time to enjoy the luxury of being boss, you know? Here, kiss me goodbye again,” he bends at the waist and the kid smacks a wet kiss on his cheek. Danny step-shuffles to Steve’s side, holding his son against his leg with a firm hand on his back, and gives Steve a sweet chaste peck on the lips, deftly transferring Charlie to Steve’s leg. Both the child and Steve barely notice the change.

Gracie says her goodbyes to Charlie, and goes for a full hug with Steve. “Have fun at school, Gracie,” Steve says to her, and the face she makes barely needs subtitles. Her parents might as well be paying the school to torture her with boredom. She takes a step back and considers his eyes, giving him a cheeky smile.

“Have fun too, Uncle Steve. You too, Charlie,” she says as a last goodbye and off they go. Charlie follows in their wake, perching himself on a chair to stare out the window, waving his little hand with enthusiasm. After a moment or two, he turns around with an air of innocent patience and gives Steve the saddest puppy-eyes ever. It must be hard for a four-year old to spend the entire day for a couple of days with his dad and then have to say goodbye. A distant part of him thinks he used to be a four-year old too, not that long ago, and he had to learn to say goodbye as well… he ignores it and focuses on cheering the kid up instead.   

“Did we remember to feed you today?” He asks with a mock-serious face. Charlie breaks out his number one silly smile and wrinkles his nose. “I know I fed myself and Grace, but you? Did you get something to eat?” He feigns absolute ignorance.

“Yeah. Danno give me ‘range juice, and… and… with the funny hat.”

“Oooooh, it was you who had the oatmeal?” Steve slaps a hand to his forehead. “I could’ve sworn it was for Danno.”

“No. It was me!” The boy exclaims.

“You sure?”

“Yeah!”

“So, you don’t want that piece of cake that I saved for you then. I mean, you must be so full.”

Steve laughs wholeheartedly when Charlie races past him into the kitchen.

 

**/28**

Getting Charlie ready for school’s easy enough; it consists of putting his things together, put him back into his shoes and get a change of socks, which got wet at some point. Then it’s put his shoes back on again, because apparently putting them on at any point except when you’re just about to go out the door ‘ _is silly, Uncle Steve_ ’. Once they’re ready, he picks him up on one arm and his stuff on the other; the little backpack a feathery weight in comparison, he’s getting heavy (finally, after months of losing weight because of the treatments).

Strapping him to the car-seat is another story altogether, Charlie chooses that exact moment to start blabbering and poking him in the face with a toy car. Steve can’t pick one word from the other, they blur together into a never-ending string of sounds that sometimes go out of his range of hearing. It’s a happy string of sounds, nonetheless, but he feels a small stab of guilt at not being able to answer back, even if Charlie shows no signs of being bothered by it, or slowing down for that matter.

On the way, Charlie’s conversation dies down until it’s all silent. He can feel the hum of the engine through his hands and feet, he can feel the vibrations, but not the sounds. It’s like a dull roar of wind rushing through his ears, it all blends together and if the noise becomes too much it is often replaced by a ringing sound that drives him up the proverbial wall.

He checks Charlie on the mirror, the kid’s looking outside, the car toy still clutched in his hand. He’s noticed Charlie has some of Danny’s nervous ticks, he tends to worry his lower lip when he’s thinking something. He wonders what that would be. Maybe he misses his mom and dad, or Grace.

They’re a few blocks from the school when Charlie breaks the silence. At first, Steve doesn’t get what he’s saying, needing to fully concentrate to pick up the lilting voice of the child, only to realise he’s calling Steve’s name.

“Yes, kiddo, we’re almost there.” He can see the entrance of the preschool and it’s packed, he spots a place to park and sets his sights for it, meanwhile Charlie mumbles something, louder than before, but still hard to understand for Steve. The tone, however, belays a certain urgency to the matter. It’s the whinny sort of sound he associates with lost favourite toys and feverish dreams.

He strives for calmness or at least a soothing tone. “What was that, sweetheart? Let me park first, so I can hear you, alright?”

By the time he parks and turns on his seat to face Charlie, the boy’s teary eyed and pouting.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Danno going to be sick too?” Charlie strains to speak clearly in his distress, catching Steve rather unprepared for it.

“ _Wha—_ Why do you think that?”

“‘Cause you got sick,” the kid cries out and covers his face with both hands, tears rolling down his cheeks. Charlie’s sobs feel like a kick to the chest; painful and surprising. Steve runs hot and cold at the same time, his brain racing for something to do, for a way to make it better, to _fix it!_

He makes sure the truck’s parked properly before he unbuckles his seatbelt, crawling his way in between seats to reach Charlie. He has to bend like a pretzel for a second before he plops down next to the kid.

“Come here, kiddo, Danno’s fine; he’s safe.” Steve unbuckles Charlie and slides him into his lap. “Shh, calm down, here, let me dry a few of these tears.” As soon as he says it he notices his lack of tissues on hand. Always quick on his feet, he ends up lifting the hem of his t-shirt to dry Charlie’s cheeks, the kid takes the opportunity to wipe his nose on it too. Steve has about two seconds to feel grossed out, before he puts the thought aside and transfers all his attention back to Charlie. “Listen, kiddo, it’s true that Dannos’s job and mine can be dangerous. I won’t lie about that. But it’s not dangerous _all_ the time. It’s actually dangerous only a little bit of the time,” he makes a pinching gesture with his free hand, thumb and index finger barely apart. “That’s why we are a team, your Uncle Chin, Uncle Lou, Auntie Kono, Danno and I; we take care of each other so nothing happens.”

Charlie doesn’t look convinced, mulling over Steve’s words.

“’ut you got hurt.”

“I did. Yes. I— I wasn’t careful enough.” As he says it, he realises this is what he believes. A lump of raw emotions lodges in his throat, making it difficult to get the next words out. “I should have… been more careful. Does that make sense?” Charlie nods, his eyes round and wide. “But Danno’s better at this stuff. He’s careful and strong. Okay?”

Charlie nods solemnly.

“Do you believe me when I say he’s strong?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And do you believe me when I say he’s super careful and really good at following rules?

“Uh-huh,” he nods emphatically.

“Then that’s all you need to know, buddy, _that_ and that Danno’s safe. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Steve steals a glance at the preschool front yard and it’s deserted. A few cars linger, people in them getting ready to go. The clock on the dashboard reads nine-oh-eight. Great, now they’re late for school. Except Charlie still looks shell-shocked around the edges, and if he’s to be honest with himself, he feels the same.

“Alright, kiddo, how about this. You look like you could use some ice-cream. And I _know_ I need some fun time. So, what do you say? Wanna go for ice-cream?”

“YES!”

“Attaboy. Back to your seat, we’re on a mission!”

Charlie scrambles back into his elevated seat and Steve struggles with the straps once more.

 

**/29**

Charlie’s ice-cream is dripping all over his front t-shirt, but at least the kid’s eating with gusto and smiling. They’re sitting on a bench under the shade of a patch of trees near the beach front, there’s a soft breeze coming from the east and a few clouds soften the glare of the sun. He licks his own ice-cream and smiles to himself, a bit amazed at how capable he has been (so far) to take charge of the situation. He was expecting Charlie to start grilling him with questions, or cry and ask for his dad, but instead he’s got a smiling kid sitting beside him, filled to the brim with sugary treats, and pointing at the ground at the ants and bugs in there. He chats happily in between drips of his ice-cream. Charlie swipes a hand over the mess at his lips and ends up with a creamy blob of chocolate in his hair. Danny is going to _loooove_ him for that.

Steve had half-planned to take Charlie for a walk on the beach and answer whatever questions he had on their jobs and try to reassure him to the best of his ability that his dad was not going to get hurt, but it hadn’t been necessary. Charlie mainly wanted him to pay close attention to shells, interesting rocks and bits, and discuss sea monsters and other creatures; in his head, Godzilla was as real as the tuna fish roaming the waters. Never mind that Godzilla wasn’t an actual sea creature to begin with.

“’ncle ‘teve?”

“Yeah, buddy?”

“c’n we go to da swing’ later?”

“You got it, kiddo, but finish your ice-cream first, then we go wash our hands, yeah?”

“’key.”

Looking at the mess in Charlie’s hands, he makes mental note to add wet wipes to the glove compartment in his truck, except he knows for sure he’s going to forget, so he takes out his phone to write a reminder in there, only to realise he’s got six missed calls and two voice-mails from Danny. He hits the voice message icon and puts the phone to his ear… and then it dawns on him. He can only hear a bunch of harsh sounds and clipped vowels.

He finishes his ice-cream in two bites, making his teeth ache with the cold, and takes his phone with both hands, swiping and tapping until he can start composing a text message for Danny, he needs to—

“Daddy!!” Charlie hops off the bench in excitement, and before he can start running in the direction he’s pointing to, Steve sweeps him off his feet and puts him back on the table, on top of it, where he can reach him if necessary, protecting him with his body. His heart starts beating a hummingbird’s tale into his chest and sweat pinpricks in his neck and forehead.

The Camaro and Kono’s Cruze are speeding their way to them, emergency lights on and a cloud of dust behind them. He can hear the faintest siren sounds coming from them, growing louder as they get closer, and he instinctively presses Charlie closer, cupping one of his ears with his hand to block the sound and making sure the other is covered against his back. One thing he kept finding plastered all over hearing-loss sites, was this big huge warning about how important it was to protect kid’s ears from sudden loud noises.

Both cars slow down to a halt, the dust catching up to them. The glimmer from the emergency lights, a veritable trichromatic rainbow of blue, red and white. Five-0 sure knows how to make an entry.

As the dust settles, he sees some movement in the Camaro. Danny hangs his head low in between his stretched arms still grasping the wheel, and then it’s a flurry of activity as he takes off his tactical vest, safety glasses and gloves, and throws them into the back seat.

Chin exits Kono’s car from the passenger side and Kono looks at him from behind the wheel of her car with a questioning, unsure frown. Chin reassures her with a hand gesture and walks all the way to Danny’s window, effectively blocking the door. They exchange a few words and then Chin raises his hands and backs away from the car. When Danny exits, it becomes obvious he’s livid and doing an effort to rein it in.

“Danno!” Charlie pipes in from behind him and stretches his arm towards Danny, pointing at his partner and looking at Steve with the sweetest toothy smile, as if Steve hasn’t already realised that’s his daddy on the car, and he just needs a little reminder and reassurance from a four-year old.

Yeap, they’re in trouble alright. Well, Charlie’s probably in the clear. It is Steve who is in trouble, big-big- _BIG_ trouble.

 

**/30**

Kono waves goodbye with a smile on her face that basically says ‘ _welcome to the doghouse, boss,_ ’ and does a complicated hand-shake with Charlie, who’s already strapped into his car seat in the truck. To Danny, she says, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to part with it this time, boss, it handles great.,” he doesn’t see his lover’s face afterwards, because he turns away from him to answer Kono, and after shaking a loose shaka at Danny’s face, she goes to the Camaro, taking her sweet time to get into the passenger seat, adjusting the mirrors and her sunglasses; _really_ enjoying herself. The Camaro and the Cruze take off on the dirt road, Chin are Kono will be taking Danny’s car back home and then head back to the office in Kono’s car. There’s still a lot of paperwork to fill and data to analyse.

Danny closes the door and sighs before planting his hands on the wheel. He, on the other hand, inches further down on his seat, shoulders slumped and a penetrating headache piercing his eye. Danny has barely said two words in his direction since he took over the truck and strapped Charlie into his seat, he checks on Charlie on the mirror, gives Steve one last look, charged with annoyance and something else, maybe disappointment, and then turns the ignition on.

The truck rumbles to life and off they go, though at a much slower pace than Chin and Kono. Danny had never been an angry driver, yelling at people left and right for their lack of driving etiquette, sure, but never with the kids in the car, in that and many other regards, he is the most responsible parent Steve has ever known.

He leans back into his seat and scrubs his face with his hands. Kono was right, he’s in the dog house.

 

**/30.2**

There’s a deafening silence inside the car that’s compounded by him being partially deaf. His heart hasn’t stopped beating hard against his chest since he thought something _awful_ had happened when he saw the team racing to their secluded little spot on the beach front, which in turn, gives him perspective as to how Danny must have felt when realised Charlie and Steve had never made it to preschool.

He rubs his hands on his thighs, they keep getting sweaty and it makes him feel sick, as if he was feverish or something. The fact his head keeps going in circles doesn’t help much either, he keeps circling back to how stupid he was, to how dumb he felt once he realised what he had done, and then, to how much he wants to apologise to Danny, but he won’t let him.

“Danny,” he pleads, wanting to explain himself, but Danny checks what Charlie is up to through the rear-view mirror and shakes his head without even looking at him, refusing to even listen what he wants to say. “I’m sorry,” he whispers and goes back to looking out the window.

Okay, this is okay, Danny’s too angry now, they can’t really talk with Charlie in the car, and even the kid must feel something is off, because he hasn’t uttered a word to either of them the entire ride, playing with his toy car and driving it over the window and the seat belts on his seat.

What a fuck up.

He gives one last longing glance at Danny and focuses on drowning the rush of ideas in his head and swallowing past the dreadful lump in his throat. He’s done way worse in his life; right now, he just needs to tough it for a while, until Danny and he can talk.

 

**/31**

“Okay, buddy,” Danny says, as he transfers Charlie from the back seat to the ground, “Danno and ‘teve need to talk, so why don’t you go upstair’, put your stuff back in your room ‘n’ then play for a bit? I’ll come fin’ you with lunch lat’r. Y’ah?”

Charlie’s eyes widen, throwing a cautious glance over his shoulder to the house, and then back at his dad and Steve. He sticks the toy car into his mouth and nods, but stays put.

“Do you want me to walk ya t’ y’ur room?” Charlie squeezes his car and hugs it over his chest, nodding again. Their ‘ _not fighting_ ’ has clearly made him uncomfortable. He’s not proud of that.

Danny turns towards Steve only long enough to give him a look that says they’ll be having a talk soon, and then takes Charlie’s hand in his, looking down at him with a smile. He caresses the kid’s hair and then smells the sticky residue in there, whatever he says afterwards is lost to Steve’s ears as they walk into the house.

In the meantime, he’s left to close the truck and take his and Charlie’s things back into the house. He leaves the stuff on the couch and makes a beeline for the kitchen, it’s too early for beer, but not for coffee, so he gets the machine started and slaps his hands over the counter. His heart starts to beat wildly again and he doesn’t want it to slip out of his control.

He hangs his head low and tries to breathe through his discomfort until the coffee machine stops throwing steam and the light turns off. He takes one last deep breath and sets to work.

He grabs a couple of mugs and fills them both, adding milk to his and a spoonful of sugar to Danny’s. He stares at the beverages, trying hard not to get sucked in the spiral of thoughts swirling in his mind. A full minute must pass by, but he doesn’t even feel like taking a sip of his coffee. He just needed to make it to occupy himself, he supposes.

A moment later, as he contemplates grabbing both mugs and stepping outside to wait for Danny, his lover appears on his side, making a wide circle around him to announce his presence, Steve tends to get startled easily; not being able to hear footfalls until they’re too close will do that. He turns around and notices Danny’s lips are pressed into a thin line, his nostrils flare up with the effort of the controlled breaths he’s taking.

Danny sees the mugs and pinches the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly.

“What happen’?” He demands in a flat tone of voice, just loud enough to be heard, but not loud enough his voice will carry over the closed kitchen door.

His heart skips a few beats and starts beating hard against his chest, worse than before.

“What the hell, Stev’n?” His eyes are bright blue against the yellowish light of the sun filtering through the curtains. “Give me something.”

“I’m sorry, Danno, I didn’t—” he tries to explain but trails off, it’s hard to think with the loud ringing in his ears.

“I leave you in charge of my kid for forty-five minute’ and _this_ is what you do?” Danny pokes him in the chest. Hard. “God, how could you be so irresponsible!”

“Danny. _Danny_. I’m sorry. I didn’t realise, I didn’t see the time. I’m sorry—” He pleads, scooting close to the counter top, suddenly dizzy and afraid he might actually keel over.

“And what do ya think telephones are for? Huh?” Danny takes his own cell from his pocket to demonstrate, shaking it in front of Steve’s face. “Geez! Yours even has Internet. An e-mail, Stev’n. A text message. A voice message. I get that you’re half-deaf ‘n’ can’t hold a conversation right now, but…” he waves his arms around him, “an _emoticon_ will do for fuck’s sake!”

Steve ducks his head and stares at his shoes. His running shoes in stark contrast with Danny’s patent leather ones. _What a mess_. His heart races, thrumming against his chest, which in turn feels like it’s constricting around his lungs. He presses his fingers to his eyes in an effort to gain some time to calm himself, but to no avail; out of nowhere he gets the feeling that something is going to happen and he can’t keep his breathing steady anymore, taking a lungful after lungful, trying hard to convince himself he’s not drowning.

He doubles over his knees and reaches to the counter, planting a hand there to keep himself from overcompensating and falling over. He can sense Danny next to him, saying something, but he can’t hear him over the rush in his ears. Danny pushes him until he’s sitting on his butt against the kitchen cabinets and squeezes his shoulder, hard, before standing up and disappearing from his field of vision for a few seconds. He tries hard to stop hyperventilating, tries to convince himself he’s fine, that everything is fine.

It doesn’t really work.

Danny appears again at the edge of his field of vision, a pill bottle in his hand. He crouches next to him, squeezing his shoulder once again, and then struggling to open the bottle. His breathing’s still a little too fast, but the presence of his partner next to him is grounding, being able to focus in the movements of his hands, as opposed to his own discomfort. After a moment, Danny hands him a rescue anxiety pill.

He fights to get a hold of himself, to put some order to his thoughts, to his breathing patterns. Danny insists on him taking the pill, grabbing his cold clammy hand and squeezing it against his own chest, he can feel one of the buttons digging painfully on his knuckle. Steve relents, taking it from his partner and pushing it around in his mouth until the pill lands under his tongue.

The pill dissolves in his mouth, a little on the bitter side, but just knowing it’s getting on his system helps him slow down.

Danny rubs his back and neck, repeating the same message over and over again, “You’re fine, Steve, babe, you’re fine, I got you, I got you.”

 

 

**/31.2**

Once the pill kicks in he can start thinking clearly again, feeling a little ashamed about the way he reacted, but also glad about Danny’s fast thinking and the forethought of his medical staff to add that little pill bottle into his prescription arsenal.

He refuses Danny’s help to get off the floor, still unaware of their standing, with the whole ‘ _took off with your kid_ ’ thing, still hanging in the air. In the meantime, Danny busies himself on the sink, taking some cutlery off the drying rack and putting it aside. He then fills a glass of water, downing it in one go. After Steve sits down at the table, Danny refills the glass and offers it to him, hovering on the opposite side, refusing to sit down.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, studying him in one soul-searching look.

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah, you sure look so,” he comments. Steve’s not impressed. “So _…_ _that_ happened.”

“I’m sorry, okay?” He snaps, involuntarily, speaking before thinking it through.

“ _Whoa_ ,” Danny pulls up his hands, palms up front, “slow down there. Having a panic attack is no picnic, I know that, okay?”

He takes a deep breath, calming himself down, making an effort not to put up his usual defences.

“I’m sorry,” he sighs out.

“Steve, babe, don’t apologise. It’s not your fault you had an attack.”

_It’s not Danny’s fault either._

“I’m not sorry for that, I meant—” Danny lifts his hand to stop him.

“I know, and I’m sorry too, I shouldn’t have pressured you like that, sometimes I forget you’re new to all of this, to the co-parenting thing.”

“I’m not that new,” he protests, but then remembers he screwed up bad and backs down. “I should’ve known better.”

Danny leans his head to the side, considering what he just said, but doesn’t add to it beyond that, letting the lull stretch between them.

“Can I explain?” He asks, and Danny nods as if saying _‘by all means’._ “Charlie was upset,” Steve starts, “we drove all the way to preschool and he started crying,” Danny frowns, “he was worried you could get hurt like me and—and I took him for ice-cream and a walk on the beach. I thought—well, clearly I didn’t think— but I thought it would be better that way than leaving him crying and hurting at school.” Danny drags a chair next to him and sits down, looking at his face with soft eyes and a lot more worry than before. “I’m sorry,” he adds.

Danny inhales deeply, searching for Steve’s hands on top of the table, it’s nice to feel the warmth after what just happened.

“Look, I’m pissed off still, I’m not going to deny that, and for future reference, I need you to understand you _can’t_ forget to tell me when you change plans that include two of the people I love the most in the world. I was scared something had happened, and in our line of work, babe, many things _have happened_.” He squeezes his hands, reassuring.  “But I don’t get to treat you like you should know better, because you don’t. I know for a fact you didn’t know the school has a policy of calling absentees’ parents.”

_Of course, they would have some sort of failsafe in place!_

“It didn’t occur to me at the time, no,” he’s ashamed to say.

“So, am I right to assume that as far as your half-cocked plan went, you were going to tell me later?” He nods. “Look, I trust your judgement on these things, okay, I wouldn’t be living here if I didn’t think you can take care of my kids— both physically and emotionally, just— just let me know next time. That’s all I ask.”

“I will, I promise.”

“Okay. Good.” He smooths his hair with his hands, a nervous tic that’s shared by many a Williams. “Now, I need you to level with me here, Steven, and I know you hate having this sort of conversation -and for the record, I do too- but… this is important, so, please give me an answer that goes beyond a grunt.”

He stays absolutely still in response, impossible to tell if he’ll be adequate to the task beforehand. Danny seems to sense his discomfort, because he reaches to him once again, running a hand on his side and leaving it on his thigh like a nice reassuring weight. An anchor.

“How are you doing, for real this time, I already know you’re upset about your hearing, but there’s also been a lot going on lately…” There’s a pause that Danny must be hoping encourages him to say something, but he’s not sure what to say yet. “I moved in only four weeks ago, some of my boxes are still unopened—”

“—Yeah, they are,” he comments, remembering the few boxes that have been unceremoniously shoved under a corner table and the ones in their closet, after a few days Steve had threatened that if their contents didn’t find a permanent place in the house he would assume it was garbage and just get rid of it, Danny had given him a knowing look, as if saying ‘over my dead body’ and they had left it at that.

Danny gives him a tentative smile, probably remembering the same argument.

“And this goddamn op from hell and all that came with it,” he continues. “Getting side-lined… I know it’s not easy for you to be benched, I still have scars from last time, mind you. And I know you were worried about Kono, and I think I might have screwed up on my own by not to bring it up with you sooner… but that shit you pulled with the swimming? I was worried, you know? I _am_ worried, still. I didn’t know if by talking about it—” he blows a breath and looks the other side.

“How did you…” he croaks.

Danny blinks rapidly, pulling himself together. He then gives him the dredges of a cocky smile.

“Because _a_ , I’m a fine detective and you’re lucky to have me, and _b_ , you’re a neat freak, but that day you left your wet hoodie on top of the dryer. I just put two and two together. I thought I would have to rush you to the hospital or something, you were white as a sheet, babe.” He rubs his arm up and down, reassuring himself as much as encouraging Steve to say something. “I’m guessing that lead to the—” he points to his own ear, waggling his finger for emphasis.

“Yeah,” he admits, not proud of himself.

“Starting to see why I’m worried here?”

He nods, a bit numb by the rawness of their conversation, and on top of that, because the rescue pill is already in full effect.

“I won’t do it again, though. I thought… I don’t know what I thought, but it’s…” he trails off.

“Look, I’m not judging, I know you get edgy when you can’t do your routines, so do I, we all have our own rituals and things we need to do to feel human. But I don’t think I’m that far off here to say, that maybe you might need a little bit more help in that department, after this injury.”

His heart leaps; a fair warning this is _not_ a preferred topic to be discussed. “Are you asking me to go see a _shrink_?”

“ _Don’t say it like that_. No one ever tell you your face might freeze in that position? _Geez!”_ Danny scratches the back of his own head and then runs his fingers over Steve’s arm, soothing his ruffled feathers. “Look, I know for a fact you’ve seen one before, more than one actually, I may not get access to your personnel files -like you have no shame to peruse mine- but I still have a few tricks up my sleeve. Again, I’m not judging, because as you know, I have seen a few myself. And I’m not saying you’re crazy -though, let’s be clear here, you _are_ , in a good way—” he rushes to take the sting off it. “What _I am_ saying is that this is a big adjustment, that it may or may not pass with time, and I worry, I’ve seen you get increasingly on edge, jumpy and like your skin’s too tight for your body since we came home from hospital— this is your second panic attack in less than a month, Steven, don’t let it get worse by not consulting with a professional. That’s all.”

Steve lets Danny’s words sink in, he’s not wrong, or rather, he doesn’t want him to be right. Just as much he doesn’t want his jittery disposition to become a full-fledged anxiety disorder. It’s enough to give him pause, he needs to think this one through. Which in turn reminds him—

“Did you talk to Kono too?”

“What?” Danny asks, completely derailed from his train of thought.

“She… umm, when we talked, she was feeling really guilty, and in retrospect… I may have forgotten to say the part where if it gets too hard, go talk to someone about it.”

“No, I didn’t,” he sputters. “We haven’t really talked about what happened, not in great detail anyway. Not yet— _look_ , just— one person at a time, _alright?_ Will you _think_ about it?”

“Yes, Danny, I will.”

“Good. _Thank you,”_ he grunts, annoyed. He huffs a breath and his brow furrows. “ _Damn,_ you caught me off guard with that one about Kono, you don’t think Chin already had that conversation with her? Or Adam? Or herself? She’s not a rookie anymore, you know?”

His conversation with Kono comes to mind with something akin to fondness.

“Yeah, I know,” he answers. “I think maybe I’ll suggest it too, just in case.” Danny’s face lights up in surprise. “Don’t get any ideas, I said I would think about it, I haven’t said yes, yet.”

“I know, babe,” he backs off, “it’s not that, I thought— never mind,” he shakes his head and stands up, going straight for the fridge, effectively ending this conversation.

He reels a bit at the suddenness of Danny’s act, but then he realises Danny had thought it would be harder to talk to him about it, about his worries, about his health. And doesn’t that say a lot about what Danny has come to expect from him within the boundaries of their relationship?

_Maybe with good reason._

It’s not fair that he expects to know every last detail about his partner, but he won’t share details about himself in return; ‘ _it’s hard to talk about it’_ is no longer a good excuse (if it ever was one), and he’s no longer his own man anymore, hasn’t been for a while; Danny and the kids may have become permanent fixtures in this house rather recently, but he’s been an important figure to all of them for ages, taking care of himself is also taking care of them. He should have understood that sooner. This is not Danny living in his house, this is them sharing a _home_.

“I’m gonna throw some food together, you feeling up to eating yet?” Danny asks, absentmindedly, popping his head from behind the fridge door.

“Not really,” he admits. His stomach feels funny.

“Okay, how about a smoothie?”

He bites his lower lip, thinking; his thoughts are getting muddier, probably a secondary effect of the pill. He should really bring it up now, sooner rather than later. He’s been visiting websites and checking price tags on furniture and bedding for Nahele, but he hasn’t talked with Danny about it yet.

“Babe, what’s wrong?” Danny turns to look at him, a flash of worry crossing his eyes.

“Nothing.” Danny frowns. “I want to tell you something, though. It’s not bad.”

Danny closes the door and takes a few steps closer, crossing his arms over his chest; he’s got his _wary_ attention, alright.

“I… I was thinking about getting Nahele a bed, for when he stays here,” he starts, with some trepidation, not because he thinks Danny will blow a fuse over it, but rather because they just had a fight and then he had a meltdown, this is already a rollercoaster of emotions and topics, it might just be a bit too much for one idle Wednesday afternoon. “And, uh-mm, we never did talk about the kids’ rooms? Grace has had her own space here for a long time, so she’s all set, but what about Charlie?” Danny uncrosses his arms and shuffles on his feet, unconsciously looking towards the second floor, where Charlie is. “You said you didn’t want to get your hopes up until the hospital released him, and then, you didn’t know if he would be visiting at all because the lawyers are still trying to make sense of the case, and then we said we would do it the first week you moved in but…” Their first month officially living together had been a blur of chasing their own tails around the islands, watching the case that made careers (or tanked them) unfold before their eyes, the same that had put him into this forced medical leave.

Danny sighs, “you’re not thinking of getting him a fold-out, are you?” like he’s pre-emptively disappointed in Steve if he says yes.

“No, of course not,” he rushes to answer. From the couch to a fold-out in the living room is not much of an improvement.

“He’ll _need_ his own room then,” he argues, like it’s an obvious corollary to the initial idea.

“I guess he will, which…” he struggles to keep his train of thought straight. “Charlie,” he exclaims, needing to settle something in his head and keep going from there, plus he’s all talked out already. “We haven’t really settled anything on that front.”

“He can wait for a bit, the kids don’t come that often, well, Gracie does, but I don’t officially have custody of Charlie, and he misses his parents—” Danny blows a harsh breath out; unexpectedly, almost like he had taken a punch. Steve sees the pained face he makes at the thought that Charlie still doesn’t consider him a primary carer, more like an overly invested uncle that’s fun to hang out with for a few days at a time. “Whether I like it or not,” he starts again, utterly defeated, “I’m still not a _home_ for that kid, Steve. He doesn’t need his own room yet… but Nahele does.”

Steve stands up and goes to Danny, pulling him into an embrace, he squeezes the back of his neck and hooks his head over his lover’s mop of hair.

“I’m sorry, Danny. So sorry,” he soothes. Almost a year since Rachel dropped that bombshell and still such a delicate situation.

Danny mumbles something into his chest, stops himself and puts some distance between them. Looking up he says, “it is what it is, babe. It is what it is.” He thumps his head back into Steve’s chest, grabbing Steve’s hand and placing it on top of his own head, making him do rubbing motions.

Steve shakes his hand out of Danny’s grasp, “alright, alright, I got it, I got it.” And then resumes his caressing of Danny’s head and neck. Danny sets his free hand on Steve’s hip and squeezes a bit, letting him know it’s all good.

It goes on for a while, just petting and snuggling closer, Steve starts rocking them from side to side, until he needs to stop, the motion is making him dizzy; his drug-addled brain doesn’t help.

Danny places both of his hands on Steve’s hips and leans back a bit, until Steve can see his face. “We’re gonna be a room short, though,” he says, continuing their conversation. “Nahele can’t bunk with Charlie because of the age difference, child services will put your head on a spike if we do that, hell, both of our heads; Nahele’s social worker and the lawyers.”

“You’re right. I hadn’t thought of that,” he deflates, because he truly hadn’t, his use of the house has always been to the extent of functionality and making sure it’s cleaned and tidy. Even after all these years, his major contribution to making this house his own, was planting a flat screen TV in the living room and rearranging the kitchen cabinets to his own satisfaction. He deflates some more.

“I’m not saying no, you _doofus_ , I’m saying, we might have to build one.”

“Like an extension?” He scrunches up his nose as he says it; he’s downright loopy now.

“Yeah, like an extension, what else you think? A pool house?” He smiles with fondness in his eyes. “You sure you’re ready to start gutting your house and having everything covered in plaster dust for weeks?”

_For Danny? For Nahele? For Charlie and Grace?_

“Yeah! Of course, months on end if necessary,” he exclaims with full conviction behind his words.

“Okay, I guess we can do that. Have you talked with Nahele about it?”

“I mentioned it the other day, before we had to go to the hospital?”

“Oh!” Danny exclaims, surprised, “maybe that’s why he… hmm,” he mumbles, clearly thinking about whatever happened that day.

“He what?”

“He came upstairs and he looked kind of shell shocked, the bathroom was free and he sort of bunkered there for a long while, that’s why Grace lost her patience and went in and flushed the toilet on him. He was taking too long. I though he was upset about you getting hurt, but when he came out he was okay and then I forgot about it.”

“Oh, yeah, I thought he looked shaken up when I mentioned it, but I figured, if something was amiss…”

“He would tell you?”

“Yeah. Maybe I should have gone after him,” he reproaches himself, he had vowed to himself get more involved, but noticing something and then not bring it up, that was not—

“Hey, stop it. He’s a teenager, he needs his space just as much as he needs someone to count on. Next time you’ll do better, this gig has a learning curve to it, alright?”

Steve smiles, a gentle buzz of contentment fluttering in his chest. Twice in this conversation Danny has said he’s good at this ‘parenting’ thing, first he said he trusted Steve could take care of his children, and now he just pointed out he’s a person Nahele can count on. He’s getting compliments from the master himself.

Some of what he’s thinking must show on his face, because Danny’s giving him a prideful smile, as if saying ‘yeah, you’re all that.’

 “Why don’t you go have a nap on the couch, and I fix us something to eat, okay? You’re looking ten shades of loopy in there. I’ll make you a smoothie, it will go down easier, okay?”

“I should go check on Charlie,” Steve says, mimicking the look upwards Danny had done earlier, as if he could guess Charlie’s state of mind from the distance.

“Don’t bother, babe. He made it to bed and crashed. Someone pumped him full of sugar this morning and at some point, all that fuel had to run out.”

“Oh, sorry about that,” he smiles awkwardly.

“Don’t worry, when he wakes up fully recharged, you can watch him. I may be home, but I still have to work in the afternoon.”

Steve flinches internally, Charlie can be a handful sometimes, very difficult to keep track of.

“I’ll take it as a way of making up to you for this morning,” he whimpers, feeling the siren call of the couch.

“Yeah, you do that, honey,” Danny answers, voice full of sarcasm, already turning to go get lunch going.

 

**/32**

Thursday had gone without a hitch, Steve had driven Charlie to preschool (on time, mind you), and then came back to pick him up, shooting off texts to let Danny know everything was fine. Danny’s text responses had been smiling emoticons, like a little joke they now shared.

Friday morning was a little bit more hectic, because Charlie didn’t want to get up, and Grace needed to be earlier than usual at school. That meant he had been in charge of getting the kid dressed, fed and ready, which had gained him a new level of respect for Danny at making it look so easy and routine. Chasing a four-and-a-half-year-old around the house was not his definition of a morning workout, but it had turned to be just as demanding. What the heck does this kid have against socks and shoes? Thankfully, Danny had gotten off work early and had picked up both Grace and Charlie from their respective schools.

After taking a much needed ‘rest’ in his bed —head under a pillow— he’s feeling much better, going out to the lanai and checking the plants, making sure they are watered and taken care of. It has been a while since the last time he pruned some of the flower beds, and a few of the bushes need trimming.

He starts with the water, going only for the plants that are in the shade, otherwise the heat of the sun will heat the water and end up doing more damage than good to his garden.

About thirty minutes in, Danny comes out with a hat in hand and pesters him about wearing it, because ‘ _antibiotics and sun don’t mix, you big lug, that’s why_.’ But after a few stern looks, he leaves him alone, only to come back with a tall glass of water that he leaves on top of the table with an air of authority, pointing to it and then to Steve, as if saying _‘you better drink it, GI Jerk.’_

Once he’s done watering, he goes into the garage to get the big scissors, but he can’t find them. He goes to the kitchen, to the mudroom and then back into the garage, but to no avail. _Of course_ , the minute Danny finally gets off his back is the moment he needs him. He can’t find the damned things, which no matter how many times Danny has said they are most _emphatically not_ for gardening, he finds more comfortable than the torture device his dad left behind, or the ones his lover brought over after he moved in.

He goes into the kitchen, toeing his shoes off by the door, and goes to the cabinet where certain type of junk tends to gravitate to, last time he needed the big scissors, he was sure he had put them there.

Except… they’re not there. Great. He frowns, thinking, but also a little annoyed; he wants to finish the flowerbed today, preferably before Danny starts to get antsy about the sun again, and the meds, and vertigo, and opportunistic infections.

He looks into the other cabinets in the kitchen, moves the search op to the mudroom, doing a more thorough systematic search than before, and then to the living room. Last time he used them he’s sure he left them in the— but then Danny opened a package, and then there was an art project for Gracie’s school, so maybe they’re on his father desk, the kids tend to put most school-related things in that room since it’s mostly them who use it.

He pads to his dad’s office, noticing the curtains are open; Danny must be in there, he might as well grill him on the whereabouts of the scissors, just in case he decided to hide them.

“Hey, Danny, have you seen the big scissors because I— Oh, hi Gracie.”

Grace is sprawled over his dad’s desk chair, paging through a book on police procedures of all things. She looks up at him but says nothing, her eyes going back to the book.

He goes around Grace to see if the scissors are on top of the desk, by any chance. “Whatcha doing, kid?”

“Readin’,” she shrugs her shoulders.

“Oh,” he checks the pencil holder, “anything good?”

She visibly perks up at that, sitting straighter and leaning forward on her seat. “Actually yeah. Look, it’s fill’d with ‘notations; some in Danno’s handwrittin’, just… wait,” she flips through the pages, looking for something specific. “Is this yours?” She finally asks, showing him the last page of a chapter somewhere in the middle.

There’s a little doodle of a hangman in there, eight spaces, the first is an A, as is the seventh; third and last one are Ts. He smiles fondly at that, he had forgotten about it.

“Yeah. I did that.”

“It’s just…” she trails off, suddenly uncertain.

“It’s okay, baby, you can ask.”

“Danno has —well, had— in the other house, the same one on his night table, on this legal pad he keeps around.” She looks up at him.

Steve takes the book from Grace and studies his crude rendition of a hangman. “Yeah, we were playing over the phone,” he sits on the edge of the desk, facing Grace, “when I first joined five-oh, your father might have told you, I was a bit—” he makes a _so-so_ gesture with his hand—

“My dad said you were cert’fiable,” Grace interrupts, a smirk on her lips, hugging herself through the front pocket of her hoodie.

He chuckles, “yeah, he did say that. Anyway,” he rolls his eyes a bit, “I was not properly acquainted with police procedures, so your father lent me his copy and this chapter had a lot of little notes and questions and it was a bit of a difficult chapter.”

“’ven for you?”

“Yeah, even for me. Though I appreciate the confidence, I’m smart, but not infallible.” Grace scrounges up her nose at that. “It means—”

“Oh, I know what it means,” she admonishes, “I meant, you _are_ kinda infallible, not… super, like a superhero, but you know…” she shrugs one shoulder up and down, “if we need you, I know you’ll be there.”

“Oh,” he croaks, dizzy with the rush of emotions that warm his soul from the inside out. He has trouble holding the book up, so he gently places it on the desk. There’s a buzz inside his head that starts to quiet down after a moment or two of relishing on the warmth this girl just brought to his heart.

“Did you know?” She suddenly asks, making sure to enunciate clearly. Her eyes go round as she expects his answer.

“What?” He asks for clarification.

“Did you kno’? Then? Did you know you were… that you and my dad…?”

“Oh,” this was unexpected, “no, back then I just needed a friend, we both did, actually. I just knew he was the best friend I could ever hope for.”

“Mmmm,” she acknowledges as she caresses the corner of the book, thinking her way through what she wants to know. “ _When_ did you kno’?”

He’s not sure this is something he’s allowed to discuss with Grace, so he takes his time cleaning up his answer to make sure it’s suitable for her.

“I got in trouble in another country, almost three years ago, and Danno went to get me, it wasn’t the first time he did something like that, coming way out of his way to make sure I was alright, but it was the first time I got it, that Danny wasn’t going away, that he was a permanent fixture and a constant in my life.”

Grace is silent once again, mulling over his words. A few minutes ago, he walked into a personal moment of introspection of hers, that much is clear now, but he feels lost as to what to do about it, or where this is going.

“Was it hard? In the Navy?” More non-segue questions.

“What was?”

“Keeping it a secret, when you were in the Navy?” She’s avoiding looking directly at him, maybe she’s embarrassed, or perhaps trying to save him from embarrassment. “In active duty, I mean.”

Yeah, he has the distinct feeling this conversation is not really about his and Danny’s relationship, but something deeper, more important.

“Grace, what’s going on? Why are you asking me this?” He leans over to Grace, trying to put all his focus on her.

“I just want to know if it’s hard to keep a secret,” she sighs out, “something that’s not a bad thing, but other people might think it’s bad, and judge you for it.”

He’s still not sure where this is going, but he senses the answer is important to Grace.

“Yes and no,” he stammers out, trying to measure up to the circumstances, “sometimes I forgot about it, it wasn’t a big deal, I had so many other things to do. Sometimes all the physical stuff would just wipe me out and make me forget everything. And other days, it got… it wasn’t as easy. Sometimes I just wanted to be… me, you know?” He frowns, hoping it’s a satisfactory answer. “Does it make sense?”

She nods thoughtfully, chewing her lip in concentration.

“Hey, Gracie,” he scoots closer to her, leaning over and landing a hand on her knee, “what’s going on that head of yours?”

She deflates, looking very tired all the sudden. Her hand covers his over her knee.

“I just don’t understand why she would do something like this. Why would she lie to all of us for years, and sometimes I think if it wasn’t because Charlie got sick, we would’ve never known.” _Oh-oh, what did he just step into?_ “And I just want to understand, Uncle Steve, because I’m tired of being angry at her, she’s my mum, I don’t want to be angry all the time, but… but… how could she do this to Danno? To me? How? I don’t… it doesn’t make any sense.”

He doesn’t have an answer to that, not a good one anyway. He hugs her fiercely to his side, for a second wanting to shred Rachel to pieces for hurting the people he loves.

“Sometimes people make mistakes with the best of intentions, Gracie. I think your mother thought she was doing the right thing and she thought she was doing it out of love.”

“Love’s not an ‘xcuse!” She yelps.

“No, it isn’t,” he recognises, feeling immensely inadequate to have this conversation with Grace, especially in absence of her father. “So, umm,” he starts, putting some order to his thoughts, “you can be mad at your mum and love her all the same,” he shuffles on is feet, trying to put together the other idea he wants to convey. “I can’t speak for her, but I think you can stay mad at what your mum did for as long as you need to, and she’ll understand, just like she’ll understand that sometimes you just want the old times back.”

She sighs, resting against the back of the chair, her bottom lip sticking out for a brief second. A spitting image of Danny in that one moment.

“How do you know that?” She finally asks.

Okay, this one is easier to answer, “Because I would understand too, your father taught me that.”

Her eyes fill with tears, and he hugs her again, tucking his chin over her shoulder. He doesn’t know what else to say, except, “I love you, baby girl.”

Grace chuckles and Steve can imagine her rolling her eyes in a way that screams, _‘lame’._

“I’m not a baby anymore, I’m not even a girl anymore,” she half-complains.

“Yeah, I agree, but ‘ _teen of mine’_ just doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

She squirms in his arms and he sits back on the edge of the desk again. This kid’s getting tall, he distantly observes, her feet used to dangle a long way from the floor and now they’re almost flat against it.

“Thank you,” she says, visibly pulling herself together. He wishes she wouldn’t feel the need to do that, but lately she’s started doing it; reining it in and closing off. He should probably talk about that with Danny. He makes the decision then: he will.

“Sure, whatever you need kiddo, you need me and I’m there” he stands up, feeling one of his knees pop when he straightens it. One of his thighs has gone numb too.

Grace picks up the book again, looking like she’s going to concentrate on it again, almost like nothing happened a minute before. He gets it. He doesn’t like it, but he gets it.

“Third drawer,” Grace says, looking at him over the edge of the book.

“What?”

“The scissors. Third drawer.”

“How do you do that?” He gives her a funny look, because seriously, it’s like random household items are indexed on her mind and she can tell you, without giving it much thought, where even the tiniest, never-used-before hairpin is.

She shrugs her shoulders and her smile unfurls slow and knowing on her face.

“ _How?_ Never, in all the time I’ve known you,” he continues, as he goes around the desk to search it, “have I ever seen you snooping or going through my stuff, and still, every time, without fault, you know exactly where things are. How?”

Her entire answer consists of tucking the corner of her lips into a cheeky sort of grin and turning the page on the book. _Some things are better left to mystery_ , his mum used to say. 

Scissors in hand, he goes back to the garden.

 

**/33**

“I’m off to pick up Nahele!” He yells loud enough to be heard in the kitchen, where he thinks Danny is, waiting for him to give him some signal that he heard.

What he doesn’t expect is the trampling of Grace and Charlie on the stairs, rushing to his side, followed by Danny with a small messenger bag hanging from his hand, the bag they often use to carry all sorts of Charlie-related stuff when they go out, like a change of clothes, his meds and a few emergency toys, the kind you only take out when your toddler needs the distraction _now!_

“I thought I was picking him up?” He questions, hand poised over the door knob.

“Yes, you are… with all of us in tow, I thought we could go out and have some fun?” Danny smirks like he’s up to something, and Grace smiles innocently at him as well. Whatever it is, they’re both in on it. Charlie, on his part, looks up at them doing a little frown, like saying ‘ _what’s the hold up?_ ’

“Okay then, guess we’re all going. Mind putting Charlie’s seat on the truck?”

“No problem, babe.”

Steve narrows his eyes at Danny’s retreating back. No opposition to doing menial tasks, especially involving Charlie’s seat? This behaviour is suspicious, _highly_ suspicious. Alright, his interest’s piqued, that’s for sure.

 

**/33.2**

“Oh, we going somewhere?” Nahele asks, peering over Steve’s shoulder to the waiting circus of people in the truck. Steve turns to look too. Danny’s doing a cut-throat move that’s meant for Charlie to stop, but the kid’s laughing with his head tucked low on his chest and then plants a firm kick to the back of Danny’s seat. Okay, Steve doesn’t need to see the rest, he’s sure that’s going to drive Danny insane before too long.

“Yeah. Danny has secret plans for all of us. You in on it too?”

Nahele shakes his head _‘no’_ and then and looks down at himself and back into the house.

“Can you wait for like… two minutes?”

 _Of course!_ “Sure, buddy, whatever you need,” he says, stepping past the threshold into the living room and studying the place, taking the opportunity to really observe his surroundings.

The few times he’s been here before, the fosters had been all over him, asking question after question in a way befitting of a police station, making sure Nahele was going to be safe with him when he went to visit his home. At that point, Steve had already been vetted by the social worker from Child Protective Services, but Mrs and Mr Kaiwi needed to do this for their own peace of mind; Steve appreciated the sentiment and could get behind that line of action, so he answered everything they wanted to know, and then some.

It’s a modest home, worn out by time and use. This home currently houses the Kaiwis and two foster teens, including Nahele. He doesn’t talk much about Dennis, but from what Steve could gather, the other kid’s thirteen and has a good enough relationship with him, even if he mostly keeps to himself. There’s pictures of the Kaiwis with a handful of different boys, all fosters and some of them with their kids, all grown up now, one of them attending University in the mainland, and the other recently married and teaching High School Chemistry in Oahu.

There’s a few figurines on the mantel and a huge TV on the living room. Nahele had been bitter to find out they had strict rules about watching it and even worse, no video games, _ever._ Even if the kids somehow managed to get a console, Mrs Kaiwi was not about to let them plug it in their home. Steve had to really bite his tongue with that one, and refrain from getting him a Nintendo or something. In a way, it pushed Nahele to have enough skills to get himself invited regularly to other kid’s houses and interact with other families, even if the rule had not been originally designed with that in mind, it had its benefits. Steve had still allowed him to install _one_ PC Game on his home computer, giving him an hour or two to play it every time he visited. Some people might say he was spoiling the kid, but he chose to never listen to them.

“’Kay, I’m ready, let’s go,” says Nahele as he walks into the room, he’s changed clothes into dressier shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. His version of proper attire to go out with the family to Danny’s weekend dinners. He figures the boardies and tank top have taken residence in Nahele’s backpack along with whatever homework he has for Monday.

“Dressing up? You sure you don’t know what Danny’s planning?”

“Noooo, I’m just being cautious here, I don’t want to be the fool in cargo shorts at a nice restaurant, you know?” He snickers past him into the front porch, waving at Danny and the kids in the truck.

Steve looks down and sees what he already knows will be there, _cargos_. When Nahele lets himself be, he has a dry sense of humour that could rival Danny’s own. He loves this kid.

As he walks to the truck he realises Danny’s sitting behind the wheel with a cheeky grin, and he just surrenders. This day has been clearly taken over by Danny and he might as well just go with it.

 

**/33.3**

“Where are we going, again?” He asks for the fourth time, earning himself a grand eye roll.

“Steven, babe, not even the kids are asking every five minutes and I actually expect it from them, okay?” He answers, keeping his eyes on the road. He hasn’t been able to figure out what this mysterious errand is, because the direction they’re currently going in leads to either the airport or about a dozen other interesting places and he very much doubts Danny’s taking them for a surprise flight.

“ _Heeeeey!_ ” He hears Gracie protest from behind, right into his ear, causing him to flinch minutely. That was rather unexpected.

“Scoot back into your seat, please,” Danny admonishes gently, “plus, it’s a compliment, I’m saying you guys are more patient than him.”

“That’s _not_ what you were sayin’, dad!”

“Fine,” he admits with a little shrug of a shoulder, “I wasn’t, but the point is _Steve’s_ being annoying.”

“Heeeeeeey!” He protests more pro-forma than actual offence; he _is_ being annoying on purpose after all.

 

**/33.4**

Fifteen minutes later, they’re parking into Home Depot. Danny turns off the engine and exits the vehicle, going around the front and opening the back door to help Charlie out. In the meantime, Steve follows his partner’s movements with his eyes, a little taken aback by the scenery, he thought they were going for a special sort of dinner, not… tool browsing.

“Alright,” Danny claps his hands once everybody has exited the truck. “Steve, Nahele, have you guys figured it out, or do you need me to spell it out?”

Steve and Nahele look at each other, and it hits him. This was so obvious from the beginning! Of course, Danny would take it upon himself to do this as soon as possible and take them by surprise in the process, if possible.

“We’re here to get you some stuff for your room, buddy,” he says, offering a warm smile to the kid.

“Me?” Nahele’s expression is borderline comical.

“Yup,” Grace adds, nodding like it’s the most logical thing ever. “I don’t mind you using my room at all, but you need a place to sleep when it’s all of us, it’s not fair you have to take the couch.”

“Well said, honey.” Danny says as he squeezes her shoulder. “Okay, let’s get going, I thought we could go to Family Barbecue to celebrate afterwards.”

Grace and Nahele lead the way, though it’s more like Grace chats happily about paint colour options and Nahele stares at her with a stunned face, while Charlie tries to keep up with them. Once they get ahead their voices blur together and stop making sense, but the general sound of it is a happy one.

“You good?” Danny asks at his side, walking in tandem with him, clearly proud of himself. “I got you for a while there.”

“Yeah, you did. Thanks.”

“Oh, babe, we talked about it, it’s fine. I talked with Grace and Charlie and they were cool with it too.”

“Okay. Good. But I was thanking you for the surprise, I thought we had agreed to wait for a bit.”

“Yeah, well… he needed it now, right? I was thinking some paint, and a bed for today, then we’ll figure out the rest, yeah?”

Steve looks ahead, at Grace pointing something in a store catalogue as Nahele shakes his head and smiles, bewildered.

“Did you tell Grace that?”

Danny makes a pained face, there’s a good probability they’ll be leaving today with a tad more than paint and _one_ piece of furniture.

Grace’s dragging the kid to the paint section, so they follow there, walking faster to catch up. Steve’s getting worried Nahele will get overwhelmed soon. As they round the corner, Grace’s holding two paint chips in her hand, both shades of blue. Charlie’s jumping excitedly and pointing to the one on the left and Nahele’s doing a deep-thought mock face.

“Charlie, you’re right,” Nahele takes the paint square on the left and squints at the fine printing, “umm… ovation paint is clearly the way to go.”

Charlie smiles widely at them and Steve’s heart soars. He loves these people.

“Danno?” Charlie turns to his father.

“Yeah, baby?”

“’En do I get my room?” He asks, twisting his hands in front of him.

They had talked about this, but they had decided to make Nahele’s room a priority, and wait for the compensation money for the search and seizure operation to figure out the actual logistics. They have more than enough space on the house, but some reshuffle of walls will be needed to add a fourth room to the place. As of today, all Nahele’s future room needs is a good scrubbing, new colours and some personal touches.

As Danny scrambles to give an honest, realistic answer, Grace says, “When you go to first grade, you knuckle head,” all fondness and over-protectiveness.

For the first time, it occurs to Steve that Grace might enjoy having to share her room with Charlie when they’re both over at the house. He and Danny share a look, and an eyebrow lift, and a couple of even more pointed nods and looks, agreeing to have a deeper talk about the kids’ situation soon.

Nahele on is part, has a deer caught in headlights aura to his stance, his face going from surprise to guilt and back to bewilderment. And Danny must get it too, because he gently steers his kids into the opposite direction, showing them stuff as they walk deeper into the hall, leaving Nahele and Steve behind.

“You okay there, buddy?”

“Yup,” he says, popping the _p_ and looking anywhere but at Steve.

“You don’t like the idea of getting a room for yourself?”

Nahele’s shoulders tense up and go up-up- _up_. He bites his lip and for a second it looks like he won’t say a thing, but then he blurts out, “Shouldn’t Charlie get his own room first?” Almost like he’s afraid Steve will go ‘yes, how wrong of us, forget about the blue paint chip you’re still holding, we’re getting out of here.’

Steve crosses his arms over his chest, oddly peeved at how little Nahele thinks of himself.

“Why?”

Nahele shrugs again, shuffling his feet, clearly uncomfortable and anxious. Steve opts for a gentler approach.

“Look, buddy, what Gracie said is true, and we talked about it last Sunday, you _need_ a place of your own to stay at the house. You don’t rest as well when you sleep on the couch. You need your own desk and a place to leave your clothes and the beach stuff, and whatever else you want to leave there. This is not to say we love you more than we love Charlie… okay? Or the other way around for that matter. He’ll get his own space in due time, but for now, you get yours, because you need it.”

Nahele’s cheeks flush bright red and he squeezes his own arm hard enough the skin around his fingers goes white. Steve’s chest aches at the sight.

“Come’ere, kiddo,” he says as he grabs Nahele by the shoulders and engulfs his frame in a hug. The kid is a furnace of embarrassed heat. “I know it might feel… weird or like too much, but I want you to know that you will always have a place in my home, okay? For as long as you want it.” Nahele burrows further into his chest and slides his arms around Steve’s back, squeezing a little too hard, but it’s fine, he can take it. 

 

**/33.5**

Like he predicted, they ended up getting a gallon of paint, a bed, a rug and a footlocker. Nahele had put his foot down at the mention of a chest of drawers, arguing a footlocker was more than enough to store what (little) he had, and then promptly reminded them they should get going to the BBQ place if they wanted to find a table. Steve had let it lie, vowing to himself to make sure this kid was spoilt rotten from time to time. The furniture would be delivered in the middle of the week and it would give him time to put everything together by the next weekend.

Danny had made a gesture at him that translated to ‘yeah, he’s got enough for a day’ and ushered them all back to the truck. Then, he drove them to the restaurant, letting he radio’s programming wash over them as a soothing balm to help them settle down for an early dinner. 

As he peruses his options on the menu, he takes the time to discreetly study his ohana, the ease with which they interact, how quick they are to smile. He loves Danny’s smile and the way he always seems to be asking ‘you having fun too?’ with his eyes. Nahele has an infectious laugh that turns to squeals of delight if you manage to carry the joke long enough. Charlie is a rambunctious dot of laughter, when he can muster the energy, and ever since he started to get better and gain some colour to his cheeks, those moments have come with increasing frequency. And Grace, even with the weight of the world on her shoulders now, manages to find a place on her heart to smile until her face dimples and her eyes shine.

“So, what are you having, Charlie?” Danny asks the kid on his lap, after showing him the sort of foods available from the menu.

“Desserts!” He pipes up, excited. “Lots and lots and lots of desserts!”

Steve’s laugh rumbles from his belly up until he makes himself dizzy from it.

 

**/34**

“But I dunn wanna gooooo,” Charlie whines at the top of the stairs, his voice so high pitched it goes out of Steve’s hearing range in a few places.

Danny crouches next to his kid and they have a quick talk, to which he has no access because even though his ears no longer feel stuffy, his hearing hasn’t improved to the point of understanding whispers that far away. Danny shakes his head ‘no’ and Charlie stamps his foot down, his bare foot making a thumping sound against the wooden floors. Other than knowing Charlie’s refusing to put his clothes on, he doesn’t know what all this fuss is about.

Charlie stomps his foot again, crossing his arms over his chest for good measure. He doesn’t think he’s ever experienced a full-blown tantrum from Charlie, but he guesses today is a good a time as any.

“Nooooo!” The kid shrieks, his bottom lip quivering. Danny gets closer, sitting down cross-legged in front of his son, rubbing soothing circles over Charlie’s chest. “But I wanna do it tooooo!” He whines again, less forcefully than before.

Danny keeps soothing Charlie, he has his ‘ _I get ya, buddy, but no can’t do_ ’ face. The kid’s chin starts to quiver again, and his face turns red. He scrunches his eyes shut, fisting his hands until his knuckles turn white. For a moment, he thinks Charlie might kick Danny’s legs or something, he looks on the verge of an explosion of epic proportions. He bursts into sobs instead.

_Aw, chucks, poor kid._

Steve has his hand on the stairs rails in a flash, stopping himself a second later, trying hard not to run up next to his boys, ready to give Charlie the moon if that would calm him down.

Danny opens his arms and hugs the stuffing out of his child. Standing up in the process and taking him into his bedroom.

He still has his hand on the railing, but thinks better of it, Nahele and Grace are downstairs in the living room, browsing through IKEA’s web site, he shouldn’t just leave them there. 

Well, they’re not so much browsing as it is Grace excitedly pointing stuff to Nahele, whilst Nahele struggles between eyeing the price tags and getting caught up in the excitement as well. For all the fighting and bickering they do, those two are tight, like brother and sister.

“He wants to stay and paint the room,” says Nahele, out of nowhere. Steve looks back at the kids, and realises he’s still perched on the bottom step of the stairs, where he’s been for almost a full minute, fighting the urge to go see what’s going on with Charlie.

“But we can’t stay,” adds Grace, “my mum’s on her way already and we have school tomorrow.”

 _Oh, so that’s what this is about._ He throws one last look upstairs and then walks into the living room to pay better attention as what the kids are saying.

“Yeah, he probably shouldn’t anyway, right?” Nahele comments, trading looks between Steve and Grace. “Because of the fumes and he’s still uh-mmm… sensitive? —”

“—Susceptible,” Grace corrects.

“Right, susceptible to allergic reactions and stuff.”

“ _And stuff_?” She teases, “very medical term. But yeah, it’s true,” she rushes to add, not giving him time to respond. “Even if we had the time, he can’t be here when that happens.”

Nahele turns to look at Steve, as if asking ‘can _I_ be here?’ but he doesn’t get the chance to answer him, because the doorbell rings. (And hey! Would you look at that, he heard it this time!)

He turns to go to open the door, but Grace beats him to it, dumping the laptop unceremoniously into Nahele’s lap on her way there. He frowns after her, closing the lid and placing it carefully on the coffee table. It’s his ‘ _gaming_ ’ computer, the one Steve lets him use when he’s around, one if his most prised possessions even if he only gets to use it a handful of times every month.

It’s Rachel. At the door.

Grace stands there, blocking her way in, and Rachel, on her part, stands very still, allowing whatever it is going between them to unfold without tipping the balance either way. It goes on for a few long seconds; there’s a moment where he thinks he needs to go and step in between them to soften the awkward pause, but then Grace lets go of the door and ushers her mum inside, going for a tight hug, placing her arms around her mother’s neck. It means Grace is trying, which is saying something after the talk they had the other day.

Rachel looks tired, though. Danny did mention she has never worked full time before, and she’s currently going through the phase where she’s doing her best to impress her bosses, and that compounded with the imminent divorce and the custody case over Charlie, must have her down to her last dregs of energy. This is such a messy situation with no clear answer.

Steve walks to their side, Nahele following suit, slightly behind his back. _Oh, that’s right_ , he thinks, realising Nahele hasn’t quite being introduced to Rachel yet. It certainly explains the bout of shyness.

“Hey, Rachel,” he greets.

“Good morning, Steve. Are you feeling better?”

“Yes, a lot better, thank you— Here, let me introduce you to Nahele,” he turns around and grabs the kid by the shoulder, pushing him front and centre.

He can feel the kid’s shoulders stiffen up under his hand, so he squeezes a bit there, to show his support. He doesn’t relax one bit.

“Well, hello there, I’ve heard a lot about you, so nice to finally meet you!” She says, putting on a big smile and extending her hand.

Nahele looks down to her hand and then to her face, before putting out his hand and giving it a quick shake.

“H-Hi,” he stammers out, throwing a desperate look at Grace. “I’ve heard a lot about you too.”

“All good I hope?” She offers, as a way to keep the conversation going. It’s a routine platitude of sorts, lots of people use that line, but it throws Nahele in for a loop. He goes wide-eyed and then stammers out something unintelligible, taking half a step back, colliding into Steve’s side.

“Of course, all good,” Steve steps in, throwing the kid a lifeline, “sorry to cut this short, but this one here,” he squeezes Nahele’s shoulder yet again, “needs to go put his stuff together.”

“Yeah, I do! Nice meeting you miss Edwards,” he rushes through the rest of the formalities, eager to go somewhere else.

“You too, Nahele, call me Rachel if you want, and by all means, if you ever want to go visit Grace at our house, you’re more than welcome,” she replies, her eyes wrinkling at the sides, putting on her best warm, welcoming smile.

Grace does a surprised double take to her mother and Nahele. She wasn’t expecting that. To be frank, neither did he, but he’s pleased by the exchange.

“Thanks,” the kid mumbles, stunned, and then leaves to the second floor, nowhere near where his things are, already packed under the corner table, next to one of Danny’s unpacked boxes.

Grace takes her leave as well, alluding to Danny and Charlie, and trotting up the stairs.

“Well,” he says, filling up the silence, staring at the now empty stair case, “that went well.”

“Yeah, well, kids these days, right? He seems like a nice kid, though. Danny described him to a tee.”

“He did?” He gushes, proud for no other reason than he really loves that kid.

“Yes. He’s very handsome too.”

His heart does a content little flip inside his chest, even if he has nothing to do with Nahele being a handsome teenager. He needs to clear his throat before he starts naming all the things he likes about him. (Who would’ve thought he would end up being one of those embarrassing people that can’t stop talking about their kid, getting choked up at the most trivial of details.)

“So,” he clears his throat again, “umm, Charlie is not ready yet. Would you care for some tea?”

“Sure, lead the way.”

 

**/34.2**

Rachel stirs her mug distractedly while Steve studies her from the other side of the table. It reminds him of the introspective demeanour Grace had carried around the house after their conversation; a little too close to moping for comfort.

“So,” she starts, “how come Charlie’s not ready, he’s often waiting on the driveway to go home.”

“Yeah, I know. I thought he was going to start crying for you around Thursday. Staying here for a whole week caught us all by surprise—” He cringes at his choice of words. Rachel does too. He didn’t mean for it to sound so judgemental, but it does anyway. “I mean,” he tries to amend, “I don’t mean to say we weren’t happy to have him, I meant that…”

Rachel rolls her eyes skyward, and holds up a hand to stop him.

“I know what you meant, it _was_ very sudden, I thought about splitting the time between Stan and Danny, but then Stan decided he needed to leave the island for god knows what and I just—” she splutters, covering her mouth with her hand.

“Look, for what is worth, I’m sorry.” She looks up and takes a deep breath, trying to calm herself.

“It means a lot coming from you, Commander.” _Yikes_ , back to ‘Commander’, although in Rachel’s head it’s a title that bears respect. It’s not necessarily bad.

“The important thing is that Charlie had a good time this week,” he says. Then he remembers his little escapade with the kid and decides to come clean immediately, to save Danny the trouble. “However, I think you should know I didn’t get him to preschool on Wednesday, so he’s absent for that day.” Rachel looks up equal parts puzzled and annoyed. He explains, “Long story short, he had a little meltdown because he was worried about Danny getting hurt like I did, and then I thought it would be a good idea to skip school to cheer him up, so I took him for ice-cream and time got away from me. I’m sorry, should it become a problem with the administration I am more than willing to go there myself and explain the whole deal.”

A slow, wicked smile unfurls from her lips.

“Oh, Steve,” she exclaims, amused, “don’t worry so much, I’ve taken Grace off school because _I_ was having a bad day,” she retells, a glint of fondness in her eye, “we went to get our nails done and then shopping, it was a very productive day, I call it mother-daughter bonding time. It’s fine. Just don’t make a habit out of it, and should a teacher ever ask, he had a cold and you thought it best to keep him from school in case it was contagious.” She confides in a conspiratorial tone, “then it turns out he wasn’t that sick and everyone’s the merrier for it. Trust me, works every time.”

He can feel his jaw metaphorically hit the floor and he laughs, almost incapable of believing her words.

“Seriously?!”

She nods, shamelessly. He snorts in amusement again. Danny and Rachel are more alike than either of them would like to admit. He keeps himself in check from mentioning something by sipping his own mug of tea.

“So, what’s taking Charlie so long again?”

“Oh, right, ummm, from what I gathered he wanted to stay longer to help paint Nahele’s bedroom.”

“Oh,” she perks up, sitting up on her chair, “he’s staying here permanently. You’re finally adopting him?”

His face crumbles, he doesn’t think Child Protective Services would give him the time of day if he ever showed up at their doorstep with an adoption request in hand.

“I’m sorry, Steve, I spoke out of turn, I didn’t think. It’s just the way you look at him and the way Danny talks about you and Nahele, I thought it was on the cards. How rude of me to assume, my apologies.”

“No, it’s… umm, it’s not that I don’t… I—”

“We don’t have to talk about it.”

“Okay,” he hastily agrees, “let’s not.”

“Sorry again,” she looks down into her mug.

“It’s…” he tries to say something, but it is impossible to put words to his thoughts, to his _feelings_ , because maybe, just _maybe_ , he wants this. Maybe the reason his mind conjures up mocking scowls on the social workers faces as he walks into their offices is because he’s apprehensive about all the things that could go _wrong._ Perhaps he’s been taken aback by how much he wants it, by how much, whenever he so much as thinks of Nahele, his heart flutters in the most pleasant way, and a myriad of domestic images go through his head, like taking him to school in the morning, wave him goodbye when he goes for his first date ever, even attending parent-teacher meetings sounds amazing. No, he can’t talk about this, not now anyway.

“How’s your tea,” he covers his bewilderment with inane chatter, inane chatter is _safe._ “Did I get it right this time?”

“It is perfect. You’ve gotten really good at this, thank you.”

“You’re very welcome,” he smiles something close to his goofy smile and vows to just enjoy in silence their shared investment into Gracie and Charlie’s wellbeing.

They do exactly that for a minute or two, until Grace comes into the room looking bemused. “Hey, Mum? Dad says they’re going to take a while, Charlie’s having a hard time leaving today.” _Ah_ , she finds amusing that his little brother’s being so fussy today, or maybe that it’s doing it to Danny, Charlie tends to be oddly well-behaved with him.

“Oh, does he want me to go there?”

Grace scrunches up her nose, shaking her head. “No, he’s fine, they’re just taking their time so Charlie doesn’t have a meltdown again.”

Rachel makes a pained face that’s quickly reflected on Grace’s, leading him to think Charlie’s tantrums maybe _are that_ legendary.

“You want something, Gracie?” He asks.

“No, I just came down to let you know. I’m keeping Nahele company, actually.”

Rachel arches an eyebrow, but to her credit she doesn’t say a thing, it’s obvious Nahele’s avoiding her, and considering Rachel’s a mother of two, she must understand it not as a statement about her person, but rather more of a last-minute resort to avoid having to meet new people.

“It’s okay, honey, you go keep your friend company,” Rachel declares in a sweet tone of voice, yet something dark flashes through Grace’s eyes. Whatever it is, she swallows it down, turns on her heel and goes back upstairs. Well, she’s _trying_ , it doesn’t mean she will always succeed in cutting her mother some slack.

Rachel clicks her tongue and hangs her head between her shoulders. When she looks up, Steve can tell she’s making a great effort to rein back her emotions. There’s black smudges of lost sleep under her eyes that suddenly stand in stark contrast with her skin.

“Rachel,” he says, not sure where’s going with this or if he’ll be welcomed, but… “I don’t want to overstep, so stop me at any time you feel the need…  She knows you’re trying, and it’s hard because she doesn’t understand your reasons, but she really wants her mum back.”

She takes a deep breath, brushing stray strands of hair off her face and gathering every ounce of energy she has left, to put on a brave face.

“Thank you,” she says, heartfelt.

He nods once in return, more than ready to move on to less emotionally charged subjects. Plus, he’s already done with his tea and Danny still hasn’t produced a fully clothed Charlie, he might need to go investigate soon.

“How was your trip?” He asks, steering the conversation back to safer topics -he hopes- killing a few more minutes before he goes upstairs and drags everybody back down.

“Oh, it was good, I got the chance to meet some of the company investors and I have a few ideas for their stock portfolio that might win me some points with them in the long run.”

“Oh, you should’ve opened with that, I’m glad it worked out then. You gonna celebrate the win?”

“Oh, Steve, it’s hardly a win yet, it’s a _chance_ at winning, at best.”

“In my line of work? I would drink to that,” he teases, pushing hard to lighten up the mood.

“Huh? _Commander_ , isn’t ten in the morning _a_ _little_ too early to break out the drinks trolley?”

He shrugs one shoulder up and down, refusing to commit to an answer either way on the subject. Rachel smiles a genuine smile and opens her mouth to say something, but is interrupted by Danny’s arrival. Sans Charlie.

“Relax, he’s coming, he wanted to say goodbye to Nahele and then Grace’s bringing him down, he’s good to go, just nobody mention painting walls for a while.”

A second later, the three kids appear at the kitchen’s door, Nahele’s holding Charlie’s backpack and his little duffel bag, a stuffed dinosaur hanging from an external pocket.

Rachel leaves the mug on the table and promptly stands up, opening her arms for Charlie, who runs into her embrace and hangs from her neck. She picks him up in one slow fluid motion, her movements careful and controlled. But when she talks to him, her face goes soft and tender, he can’t quite hear what she’s saying because she’s using her high-pitched baby voice so most of it is lost to his ears, but it sounds warm and affectionate.

After hugging everyone twice, they clear the house and pile up into Rachel’s car. No driver today, even though she came straight from the airport. Things must be going terrible between Stan and her.

After they close the door, Steve can feel the pull of tiredness on his back and legs, but they still need to go drop Nahele back at the fosters. He wouldn’t mind Danny driving today, though.

“Has anyone seen my hoodie?” Nahele pipes up from the door to the office.

Danny seems like he’s about to say something, but then turns pensive and shrugs, looking at Steve for an answer.

“Did you check in your room?” _Uh, that felt good to say!_

Nahele smiles widely until it looks like all that happiness can’t fit within his body, he practically levitates upstairs.

Danny takes the opportunity to sneak his hands over Steve’s torso from behind and hold on to him, resting his head on the back of his neck.

“Hey, babe,” he says, sliding to Steve’s front.

“Yeah?”

“That thing you did… with Rachel?”

“You _heard_ that?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, I am… I know you’re still—”

“Don’t. Don’t apologise for that. Yes, I’m angry at her for a million reasons, but what you did was good, Steven. It was perfect. You’re so…” he trails off, a smile and a glint of pride in his eyes, “I love you, babe, that’s all. I love you a lot.”

“Me too,” he bends a little to reach Danny’s lips, it’s one of those quick pecks that are meant to say everything else they can’t put into words.

Then, Nahele clears his throat rather loudly at the top of the stairs, and he can feel the little hairs at the back of his neck stand up with electricity. _Busted._

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” the kid says, studying the hoodie in his hands, fiddling with the zipper back and forth, “but I have to be back before twelve.”

Danny chortles and pats Steve on the stomach twice, shaking the Camaro’s keys in his other hand. “Okay, you heard the man, let’s go.”

Nahele smiles at Danny, pleased at being called a man, at the same time Steve says, “I call shotgun!” Danny and Nahele laugh and then go out the door, leaving him to lock up. He’s okay with that.

**/34.3**

Not driving, turns out, had not been the best idea. The tiredness he had felt before, has metamorphosed into jittery restlessness that has him reeling by the time they get home. The need to do something is undeniable and impossible to suppress. Electrifying from the bottom up.

As Danny closes the door and drops the keys in the bowl, Steve contemplates the living room, the entry to the kitchen, the hall, the part of the lanai he can see through the office’s patio doors. There’s only a handful of things out of place to remind them that less than two hours ago, the house had been brimming with the energy of their children. He knows for a fact there’s an unwashed cereal bowl in the sink, and a few wet towels in the kids’ bathroom. There’s a good chance someone left an uncapped toothpaste tube. That’s it.

Hands in his hips he throws a longing look at the stairs. “So…” he says.

Danny turns around, waiting for Steve to keep on talking, but then he purses his lips, following Steve’s gaze. “ _So?_ What you mean ‘ _so_ ’?”

A slow smile unfurls on Steve’s face, trying to convey through telepathic waves what he wants to do.

Danny’s eyebrows and hands go up-up-up, and then he’s covering his face in a mixture of frustration and exasperation, though he quickly uncovers it to talk to Steve, making sure he’s going to be heard. “Oh, _god_ , you want to go paint the room _now_ , don’t you? You’re sensible enough not to put the children to work on a Sunday, but you can’t apply the same rules to _yourself_?”

“It’s a small room, right?” He bargains, trying to downplay the dimensional aspects of it.

“Uh? _No._ ” Danny looks affronted.

“And the kids already emptied it from all the junk in there,” he perseveres, he’s sure he can convince Danny one way or the other. 

“Steven, _no_.”

“We don’t have to finish it today,” he argues, showing he _can_ compromise.

“Even if I distract you from it, you’ll end up getting up in the middle of the night and doing it anyway, right?”

_Not really, but if it helps him get his way…_

“Right, but it’s way more fun when we do things together.”

“This?” His lover points at his chest with one finger, and Steve can practically feel him from the distance, poking him right under the left collarbone. “This is how I know you’re feeling better— I have conditions, _okay_? And I want them all to be fulfilled to the letter; I want a snack, a beer. No, make that plural, more than two at least. And a back rub afterwards!” Danny demands

Okay, he can work his way up from this.  

“ _You_ do the snacks, and I’ll blow you when we’re done,” he offers all wide-eyed sincerity.

Danny squints and shuffles on his feet. He’s thinking about it, trying to find an angle, Steve is offering some good exchange in here, he knows it, Danny knows it. He looks like he’s almost convinced. At the last second something in his face gives and Steve knows he’s going to back down.

“Nah. No, tempting, but no,” he puts his hands on his hips and Steve braces for it. “You think I don’t see you fall asleep at night before you even _hit_ _the pillow?_ I would be surprised if you even manage to get my pants off, my friend. _Nah-uh_ , I call bluff. Nay, I call _bullshit_! There’s not a chance in hell you’ll be up for it after painting that room.”

Steve snorts in laughter. He may have a point. A part of him is sure that once he gets started all the edginess will dissolve away and he’ll start to feel tired and sleepy again, ready to have lunch and a not-nap in the bedroom, preferably with Danny stretching like a cat in the sun at his side.

“We paint _one_ wall and I’ll take a fruit salad as a snack, that’s my final offer. The back rub is non-negotiable,” Danny adds with finality.

“Fine,” he says, and starts shrugging his t-shirt over his head in the most suggestive manner he can muster, throwing it up over his shoulder and going up the stairs. He takes the steps two at a time.

“ _Show off!_ ” Danny teases from the bottom of the stairs. He then follows.

 

**/35**

They end up painting only one wall, the longest across, the one that adjoins with Gracie’s room. Danny drinks his beer as he paints leisurely with a paint roller. He opens a second one, but only manages to drink half of it, too tired to even contemplate having any more. Steve takes a sip out of Danny’s second when he’s not looking and starts regretting it about five minutes later. It makes him dizzy and not in a good way. Watching the shadow of the window frame move through the wall as the sun goes down doesn’t really help matters.

By the time they go to bed, it is still early by their standards, but they’re exhausted. They shower together to get the paint off their hair and then, implicitly, agree they’re dry enough to get in between the sheets. Much like Danny had said earlier, he falls asleep before his head even hits the pillow.

 

**/35.2**

Waking up before Danny’s alarm goes off feels like a small victory, like he’s reclaiming his normal routine. He stretches his arms way over his head, making sure not to wake Danny up and gets off the bed. There’s a chill in the air, so he reaches for his hoodie and slips it on.

He knows better than to try to sneak off for a swim, and he’s not up to running just yet, so he’ll do the next best thing, preparing breakfast; it has been his role for the past two years, but ever since he got injured, Danny has been taking care of it, leaving him to sleep a bit longer the first few days, and then asking him to _oversee_ the children’s morning routine, which in practice meant getting Charlie to wake up and keep track of his backpack and shoes. He managed to get it right the weekend of the cookout, but their shared meal needed to be cut short for him to go to the hospital, on account of his ear infection. He misses taking care of Danny, even if it’s something as small and trivial as a few slices of toast and a cup of coffee. 

He rushes through the preparations, taking advantage of a bowl of chopped fruits languishing in the fridge since yesterday, when Gracie and Nahele were competing on who could chop more in the span of fifteen minutes, the fact they blew through a whole week-worth of fruits went right over their heads, until Danny pointed it out and then blamed Steve for it, because ‘ _you were in charge of overseeing the children, Steven, that includes these two, even if they should be old enough to know better_ ’. Not a chance he’s letting it go to waste.

Tray in hand, he goes back into their bedroom.

“’Abe,” Danny mumbles, still half-asleep and soft in the face. “Wha’ about crumb’?”

“What? _Crumbs_?” He’s getting better at deciphering what people are saying, and on top of that, his hearing has improved to the point he can hear the microwave’s ping from a room away. “Oh, Danny, I’ve trained you too well.,” he comments mostly to himself before adding, “don’t worry about crumbs today, okay?”

Danny nods numbly, breaking a piece of toast and munching on it slowly. He throws him a resentful stare, but then decides it’s not worth arguing the _‘training’_ part. Danny is _so not_ a morning person; how he managed the past two weeks, he’s not sure.

After sharing breakfast and once the coffee has kicked in, Danny goes through the motions of getting dressed, getting his stuff together and finally going to work. According to him and the team, they’re pretty close to finish gathering all the intel to coordinate simultaneous raids around the island and other locations, to bring down the hideouts where the cartels are keeping their drugs and people, it means the team might go back to their definition of ‘normal’ working hours by the end of the week.

Once Danny’s gone, he sets to work. He decides to paint the whole room today and do the finer details tomorrow; so he gets to it, stopping only for lunch and his meds. By the time five in the afternoon rolls around, he’s wiped out. Sweat in his brow, intermittent chills running through his body. Very much against his will, he washes up, changes clothes, and goes to bed with the latest issue of Guns & Ammo.  He wakes up when Danny gets home and slides next to him, easing him back to sleep by petting his hair, leading him to turn over his side until Danny’s spooning him, a hand draped protectively over his chest.

 

**/35.3**

On Tuesday, he wakes up later than the day before to the tune of a voiceless rendition of Bon Jovi’s _Wanted Dead or Alive_ , which he’s heard maybe a dozen times before, always signalling he overslept and missed his window for his morning workout. Today, it means he heard it loud enough to be woken up by it, which is a first since his injury. His stomach flutters with a glimmer of hope, but he pushes it down, unable to deal with the idea just yet. He focusses on shaking his grogginess away and getting breakfast started.

 _Taking care of Danny_. _Finishing Nahele’s Room_. Those are the goals for his day.

Danny comes down fully dressed, with a little spring in his step. He kisses his cheek, his shoulder and his temple, dragging his lips all the way down to his neck, behind his ear, nuzzling there for a couple of seconds before snagging his mug from the counter. He sets the table as he takes regular sips of his coffee.

Once the eggs are done, they sit side by side. Danny scoots his chair closer and closer, until their thighs are pressed together and he can feel his boyfriend’s heat spreading through his leg, up to his hip and belly. It’s a slow affair, finishing their food, one he had missed dearly.

After Danny leaves for work, he immediately sets to finish the trim and other little details on Nahele’s room. He fishes an old architect’s lamp out from the attic, the kind you can clamp-on to surfaces, a little something his dad got for him when he was into models and putting them together until late hours at night. He sets a small bookshelf on a corner, putting the laptop he lets Nahele use when he’s around and the charger in there, leaving the lamp clamped to the edge of the back panel.

After lunch, he turns the TV on and pretends to watch a documentary about Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols in the Vietnam war, nodding off every few minutes. Eventually, he gives in and slides to the side, deciding to rest his eyes for a while.

 

**/35.4**

The constant ringing and buzzing of his phone, right under his thigh and way too intimate with his crotch, wakes him up. He digs it up and answers.

“McGarrett.”

On the other side of the line, there’s a male, gruff voice that’s asking him something about his address. He looks at the screen and the caller ID says it’s from Home Depot.

_Oh! Nahele’s things are here!_

He rushes to the door and sure enough, there’s a big burly man, looking none too happy to having the call end abruptly on Steve’s side. The company phone is still on his hand.

Steve ushers him and his aid inside, pointing where the things go. It takes them all of ten minutes to unload everything and get the papers signed. He tips them handsomely for their troubles as he shows them their way out.

The rest of the afternoon, he dedicates to putting together the bed, cleaning the frame until it shines, making the bed with utter care, and then, arranging and rearranging the rug and footlocker until the room looks balanced and well lit. It’s still missing a chest of drawers and a desk, but in the meantime, it will do.

Danny comes late afternoon to find him sitting on Nahele’s brand new bed, admiring his work and what it all means. His partner leans into the door jamb, crossing his arms loosely over his chest, a soft, warm smile dangling from his lips.

“Are you happy?” He asks.

“Yeah,” he gushes in response, “I am.”

“Good, so am I.”

 

**/36**

Steve reads and rereads the paragraph, recoiling from the screen in confusion, as if a few more inches of distance might change the content. No, it doesn’t change. The essence of the message remains the same.

The e-mail, sent by his private insurance, quite clearly states his compensation for injuries sustained in the line of duty has been challenged.

“ _WHAT?!_ ”

Does this mean his police medical benefits ran out? Didn’t cover anything to begin with? TRICARE doesn’t cover much unless he’s officially on active duty, but still.

Quickly scanning the e-mail doesn’t reveal much and opening the document attached gives way to a spreadsheet of sorts with a long list of medical procedures and supplies at astronomical prices, followed by a bunch of nonsense that doesn’t really help to figure out what happened. He scrubs his face with one hand and starts from the top again. He was an intelligence officer, he can figure out one lousy spreadsheet.

It’s not like he needs the money urgently, but he has already made plans to do some house renovations. He even put some feelers out for a reliable contractor to do the heavy lifting he and Danny can’t do on their own. If he understands this correctly— not getting the compensation like he had thought he was going to— will put him under for a couple of thousand dollars. This _better_ be a mistake.

He scrolls further down the document, scanning for an appeal date, or protocol, or person to talk to, _something._ At the very end of the page, in a tiny insignificant font, he comes up with a phone number, the address of the branch office where his claim is being processed and an URL where he can consult a FAQ on required paperwork to appeal the decision. And because when it rains it pours, it stands to logic that the URL is broken and the website doesn’t load at all.

He taps the string of numbers into his phone barely looking at the screen, steam building within like a pressure cooker, then he realises it’s a stupid move. He can barely hold a conversation on the phone _via text message_ with Danny when they are _both_ trying to be concise and helpful, how exactly is he going to talk with an overworked person in charge of god-knows how many complaints? It’s next to impossible. He loses steam after that. He hits the print button and leaves the desk in direction of the kitchen, bowing to get started with lunch, clear his head and come up with the basis of an appeal. Halfway into it he realises this is a Danny thing, taking refuge against the world in mundane tasks, especially those closely related to food. He’s not sure how he feels about that.

He takes a deep breath and starts peeling a couple of potatoes. He should probably check with HPD and TRICARE before going to his private insurer, the way he’s set up his health care, those two should have deducted part of the cost way before it got to his private insurer, in fact, HPD alone should have covered something like eighty percent of the costs, since this was a work-related injury after all.

He drops the knife into the sink, and sweeps the freshly cut vegetables into a pot with his hand, putting a lid on it and shoving it in the fridge. He’s too antsy, twice now he has scrounged up images of rejected debit cards at the store and once of a red stamp on top of the water bill, which is oddly specific, but he gets it, thinking about failing so bad that the basic services get cut off is an actual fear of his, which would translate to no kids in the house, no Nahele, no Grace, no Charlie. Logically, he knows it’s very unlikely for something like that to happen, but he’ll feel better once he’s straightened things out with his insurance.

He pivots on his heel and grabs the phone from the table, shooting off a message to Danny, letting him know he’ll be out for the day doing errands, no need to preoccupy him until he knows more. He makes sure everything in the kitchen is off and makes a beeline for the truck, keys already in hand.

 

**/37**

He is eyeing the number display like a hawk. Even though it’s a quiet place, it’s still impossible to understand what is being said around him, and even harder to hear the _ping_ the machine does when it changes numbers. He thinks he heard it once a while before, but he might as well have imagined it, there’s no way to know for sure.

The woman sitting beside him projects a general aura of ‘back the hell off’ and he’s trying his hardest to respect that and still maintain a straight line of vision into the number display. Unfortunately, he needs to lean about a centimetre into her extended personal space to get a clear reading of the display, and he can _feel_ the irritation building up from her side. The fact her hand twitches next to her service gun every time he does, has him casing the place, looking for a different spot to plant himself on and still have a decent line of view. She readjusts in her seat and he recoils back to his side, drumming his fingers on his thigh.

He’s still a least ten numbers away, thirteen at most. But he can wait for a bit to check on the display again, for the private’s sake and whatever reason she has to give him the evil eye. This place can be daunting if you’re having problems with your coverage. This is not his first rodeo with TRICARE, so he knows they can get fastidious about the paperwork and signatures needed to make full use of their benefits, not that he has many as a reservist.

His leg starts jiggling which in turn makes the chair shake too; he has never been good at the whole hurry-up-and-wait method the military has about it. The woman’s hate-stare intensifies on his left side and he stops the fidgeting at once, going back to just tapping his fingers on his leg. Perhaps that’s why the woman is pissed off at him in the first place.

Eight numbers to go.

On his way over he worked a plan of sorts, the main thing he needs right now is information, so he figures he needs to know what TRICARE covers, down to the last sterile gauze they used on him at the Emergency Room, and then he can extrapolate from there to figure out what HPD is covering and what his private insurance can pick up afterwards.

As a general rule, TRICARE covers general health and vision. HPD’s insurance covers mostly dental and pharmacy benefits, and anything else job-related, especially if it’s deemed catastrophic. Finally, his private insurance covers whatever else is left from there, especially once he reaches some of the other insurances limits.

Kono had asked him about medical benefits once and then proceeded to back away slowly after he started spewing percentages of salary each of his insurances took away monthly and how hard it had been to find the exact combination of benefit packages to maximise his premiums without going broke at the same time. Danny had given her a knowing smirk and proclaimed he could still teach some things to the rookie, first rule was, _don’t be Steve’s back-up_ , and then the rest of the speech was lost to him as the doors to Danny’s office closed behind them. Kono had never mentioned anything related to medical benefits again, so he figured she must have found a suitable option.

After Wo-Fat, Danny had been in charge of everything Steve-related for about a month; medication administration, house bills, paperwork and signatures at headquarters, and, most importantly, battling it out at HPD’s benefits office, because -apparently- being kidnapped by a retired FBI intelligence asset and terrorist, hell bent on a personal vendetta, didn’t _quite_ classify as work-related incident. _Go figure_. In HPD’s defence, Five-0 tends to drain certain resources faster than other departments, to which normal budgets are not designed for. After that, the Governor had approved a separate budget for Five-0, that was still to be administrated by HPD’s offices, but no longer drained medical benefits from their departments. In the aftermath, after Danny had peeked into his personal finances and other important documents, he had urged him to drop TRICARE and simplify his life on that regard, but Steve had argued he needed it in case he got reactivated for more than thirty days or had to see combat again, Danny didn’t like that answer at all. He had stalked around with lips pressed into a thin line, crossed his arms over his chest and an annoyed disposition towards anything that projected a shadow for about a week. He hadn’t been able to understand his anger back then, but he certainly understands it now; it’s not easy to contemplate your partner and lover risking life and limb in an undisclosed location where there’s nothing you can do to make sure they make it back home.

Under the circumstances, his active duty argument should be revised, though, pending his hearing-loss prognosis… and perhaps, for four other very important reasons as well; he has a family that needs him here, right now, and not half a world away. Put like that, some decisions are easier to take than others.

 _‘Two numbers to go’,_ he sighs to himself, shoulders slumping. The woman besides him turns her head slowly and with her eyebrows raised. He stands up and goes to wait near a wall, a whole room of people in between the private and him. This place does weird things to people, he’s sure of it now.

 

**/37.2**

He steps into the cubicle and shakes the woman’s hand. She looks fresh as a cucumber and has a bright smile that reaches out like a soft halo of contentment, no small feature considering the kind of work she does, dealing with the public all day (and a good number of them agitated about their benefits running out).

He sits down in front of her and presents himself, handing over his card, which she promptly takes from him and presumably proceeds to present herself, but when she speaks, he only gets a word here and there and not enough to make out a full sentence. She talks at the same time she types into her terminal, the screen covering almost her entire face.

“Good afternoon ma’am, I’m a reservist with the Navy and I have some questions regarding my insurance—”

The woman cuts him off, talking, but once again he gets next to nothing. She gives him a blank stare, the kind that it’s meant to convey you’re supposed to say something or stop wasting their time.

“Ma’am,” he says, unsure of himself, “the thing is I’m— I have—” he blows a frustrated breath, collecting his thoughts. “Sorry, Ma’am. Umm, I was injured and my hearing is shot,” he says, searching her unmoving face to see how that registers, but he’s getting nothing. “So, unless you enunciate your words and talk looking directly at me, I don’t understand.”

It takes her like a second to react to his words, but when she does, Steve feels relief course through him, she gives him a curt nod and rolls from behind the screen to look directly at him.

“’mmander, apologies. I’m lookin’ ‘t your recor’ ‘ere,” he loses a few sounds when she ducks her head to look at her monitor, “when was this ‘ncident? Was it abroad?” She turns back to her computer, clicking and typing before he even has a chance to answer.

“Uh, no ma’am, I’m the head of the governor’s task force, five-oh, it was during a raid…” The woman gives him a stunned sideways look, hands poised over the keyboard. “Ma’am.” A smirk crosses her face, there and gone in a second.

“When was this, Commander?” 

He answers her and she types again, scrolling through data. 

“Right, here it is—” she then mutters something to herself and scrolls some more.

He can’t help losing focus and his eyes start to wander around her desk first, and then into the walls of her cubicle. Everything is regulation to a tee, the only indication of a life outside her job are two frames on the far end of the desk to her back.

He realises he’s about to yawn and promptly suppress it, making his eyes water a bit. It’s going take time to go back to his usual level of energy, the doctor said so, but it still surprises him how little it can take to make him tired, and how quickly he goes from tired to exhausted. 

“Commander?” He snaps back to attention, his back sending a twinge of discomfort at the sudden movement. “I think I kno’ what happen’. ‘or som’ reason yo’r injury didn’t qualify for yo’r police benefits ‘n’ TRICARE hasn’t acted yet, so it went straight to your private one. You’re d’ first pers’n I know that has three sep’rate insur’nce’.”

He rolls his eyes internally; everybody has an opinion.

“What should I do?” He asks, unconsciously putting his left ear forward.

“Appeal, definit’ly appeal. After you get that answer, TRICARE will go into action. If there’s anything else left, it’ go to your private insurance.” She spins on her chair and recovers a few papers from the printer. It is then he notices how petite this woman is, her boots barely reaching the ground. She staples the papers together and hands them to him. “Those are copies of all your paperwork.” It’s at least twenty pages long.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he stands and offers his hand. She shakes it and then beckons him to come closer.

“Commander,” she says with a serious voice that reminds him of his Literature teacher from High School, “revisit the idea of having three separate insurances, I’ll send you information to your listed e-mail about our current plans. Take a look at it, your wallet will thank me.”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am,” he gulps down, making an effort not to stand to attention for her.

 

**/38**

The Camaro is parked on its usual spot when he gets home, though looking at the time it’s still a little early by Danny’s standards. He was under the impression his partner was going to stay later than usual at the office, finishing up their final reports on the case. Something went either very good or very bad, but seeing there was no squad retrieving him from the streets of Honolulu to go back to work under a declared state of emergency, it couldn’t have been that bad. Or, on the other hand, Danny is right and he has a rather inflated ego. “ _Hawaii is more than capable of going to shit with or without you_ ,” he has said, more than once.

When he opens the door, he’s greeted by the wonderful smell of Italian food in the air, garlic bread and something cheesy, rich and spicy. His stomach grumbles and he has a gut-deep longing for his boyfriend, he wants to see him now. He yearns to be comforted by his strong arms and gentle caresses, soft pecks under his chin. He follows the scent to the kitchen and down to the oven, he opens it and groans at the sight, kneeling in front of it to better appreciate the rows of cheesy garlic bread, normal garlic bread and bread-sticks, all lined up and equally distributed in two oven trays. All his favourites at once. They’re going to have _so_ many leftovers.

The bread doesn’t look ready just yet, but he scrabbles for a fork or something to poke one of them and see. When he can’t find anything by touch, he strains his neck to see beyond the edge of the sink.

“Heeeey, paws off the food,” Danny says to his back, from the kitchen door.

He closes the door and spins on his heel to face his lover. He looks dog-tired and a little on the pale side, sporting huge eye-bags under his eyes. Maybe something _did_ happen.

“Danny, everything alright? You home pretty early.”

“Yeah, babe, everything’s great because we are _done_. Letters were crossed and dotted, and all the evidence has been handed over to the respective agencies. As of today, five-oh has a three-day reprieve from duty and has been noted in every roster as ‘ _unavailable_ ’. I sent everyone home early and then I sent _myself_ home early. And here you have me, in all my glory.”

“Have you been drinking?” he asks, looking around to kitchen for evidence.

“Yes,” Danny answers, stepping back into the hall and reappearing in less than two seconds with a glass of scotch in hand. “And, on account of me being giddy, I’ll allow you one beer without me bitching about antibiotics and liver failure.”

He chuckles in response, but decides against teasing back, just in case he decides to revoke the one guilt-trip free beer. He hasn’t had one since the accident, and today he feels like having one to soothe his troubles of the day.

Danny hands him a longboard, already opened.

“So, this means you’ll be home tomorrow?” Steve clarifies, happy for the company, since the bulk of the house work has already been done.

Danny nods, smiling from behind his glass.

“ _Oh, boy,”_ Steve says, suggestively, “what are we going to do with all that time?”

“ _Oh_ , I don’t know about you,” Danny points to him with his glass, the scotch sloshing from side to side, “but I’m turning the alarm off, waking up _very late_ in the morning, and then snuggling under the covers with my boyfriend. _And,”_ he sticks one finger in the air for emphasis, “I’ll _definitely_ be having leftover spaghetti for lunch.” He declares, matter-of-factly. And then, as an afterthought, he adds, “What are _you_ doing tomorrow, babe?”

Okay, Danny’s definitely on his way to pleasantly buzzed.

“Guess I’m cuddling with you and reheating pasta for lunch.”

“Oh, you are?”

“Yeap, I am.”

“Good,” he smiles and then walks past him to the stove, opening the oven to check on the bread. Steve takes the opportunity to hug Danny from behind as he stirs the sauce and then does his best octopus impression and holds on to him as he puts water to boil. Once the spaghetti is salted and settled on the stove, they go sit at the table for a bit.

“I was texting you like a minute before you got here,” Danny says, apropos of nothing.

“Really?”

“Yeah, like thirty minutes ago.”

“Oh, I didn’t realise,” he takes out his phone to check, going straight to his text messages. There’s three from Danny. One is blank, the other has a sad emoticon, a house and a question mark, and the third says ‘ _whatsgoung onnn….?’_

Danny re-reads his own text-messages over his shoulder. “Goofy thumbs,” he says, mimicking the movements of his thumbs as he texts in the air. “I was trying to stir at the same time.”

Steve turns to look at him, eyebrow raised and doubt written plainly on his face.

“You sure? How many glasses have you had?”

“No, seriously,” Danny insists, doing the texting mimic again. Then he asks, “so, where were you, I didn’t know you had plans today.”

He groans in response, and the proceeds to tell him all about his sudden plans for the day. He tells Danny about the e-mail, and trying to call, but not being able to, because he can’t understand shit over the phone.

As Danny drains and serves the pasta carbonara, he retells his entire TRICARE experience, all of which Danny listens to patiently, asking for clarification only once, when he tells him about the nice petite lady who advised him against his three-tiered health insurance scheme, but he ignores that, because what he actually asks is _“and you listened to her?!”_ and he knows perfectly well what Danny’s opinion is on the subject; no need to hear it again. He tells him to start serving the Carbonara instead.

Once they’re done eating, Danny takes his phone out, taps a few numbers and kisses him on the lips. He taps some more into his phone and then motions for Steve to do the dishes, without taking his eyes off the screen. A moment later, the phone lights up with a call and Danny goes into the living room in search of pen and paper, leaving Steve behind to deal with the clean-up.

He doesn’t need to do much, except for the plates, all the rest is leftovers and he wouldn’t dare even try to store it inside the fridge without Danny’s input on how to do it _properly_ , because _god forbid_ his food gets ruined.

He’s about halfway through the clean-up when Danny comes back, announcing he’s got news.

“I come bearing news.”

“What was that call about?”

“Oh, that was this beautiful lady from the HPD benefits department, she looked into your case and told me a few things.”

 _Oh,_ he wasn’t expecting that. None of that. 

“You know _people_? In HPD? Willing to do you _favours_?” He’s confused by the entirety of that reality.

“Yeap,” Danny answers, popping the _p_.

“How come I’m just finding out about this?”

“Look, we all have our own resources. Do you want to hear the rest of it or not?”

_Eyes on the ball, McGarrett._

“Yes, please,” he answers, backing down to a polite listening disposition. He dries his hands on a dish towel and sits down next to Danny.

“Okay, so, you need to appeal, that’s for sure,” he starts, “your coverage was challenged on the grounds of you not following proper search and seizure protocol for an inhabited building,” he points down to a piece of paper, where some things are written down in Danny’s very own shorthand, it had taken him a while to be able to read it, but now he recognises it as if it where his own. “When, in reality, it was an ess-and-ess in an _abandoned_ building, with no reason to suspect there would be people there, or explosives. The grounds of the challenge are over the fact that you were not wearing earplugs during the operation. Someone –somewhere along the line of this beautiful bureaucracy— checked the wrong box, babe. _That’s_ what went wrong.”

They were blaming _him_ over this clusterfuck?!

“What? NO! I was wearing earplugs! I always put them on. I nag everyone on the team to put them on!” He exclaims, his heart pumping and his back muscles straining.

“Umm, Steve?” Danny says, a bit unsure of himself, or maybe of Steve, he’s not sure. “You weren’t, babe. I know because I was first responder, I dragged you out of there.” He takes one of Steve’s hands in his. “You had your ear-bud for closed communications on your left and nothing on your right, I checked. In fact, that little comm ear-bud is probably what saved your left ear from worse damage.”

“ _NO!_ No, Danny, I put it on, I remember I put it on.”

He was driving that day, as usual, they put on their vests and checked their guns a few blocks before. They coordinated positions on the tail of the Camaro. Hours before, when he had put the gear on the car he had made sure it was all accounted for, safety and tactical alike. The plugs had been there. He had put on the vest, and then taken the earplugs with him to the cabin of the car.

Danny gives him a long, pinched look, not liking where this is going.

“Look, babe,” Danny tries to defuse the situation, “whether you did or not, doesn’t really matter, because by _protocol_ you didn’t have to wear them for that type of procedure. As far as we were concerned we were going to find some questionable graffiti on the walls and little else.” 

He bites the corner of his lips, nostrils flaring and at the very edge of a headache. He makes himself go back there. He makes himself remember. He got back in the car, dropped the earplugs box on the cup holder and then drove all the way to the abandoned house. Danny got out first, popping the boot to retrieve something. He put on his ear-bud for communications and took the earplugs box, but he didn’t open them. _Why?_

His cell rang. That’s why. He let go of the box to take the phone. The call came from within the governor’s palace, to confirm their monthly meeting. He hung up, put the phone back into the cup holder, and then what?

He looks up into Danny’s patient eyes. He forgot. He _forgot_. He put the phone back, exited the car and after a few adjustments, the operation started. 

Danny alternates between biting his lower lip and running his tongue over it, watching the events of that day play on Steve’s face.

“I left them in the car,” he croaks, “I got a call from the governor’s and I forgot. I left them in the car.”

Danny gives him a moment to let that sink in. Then he says, “yeah, babe, you did.”

It takes him by surprise, the certainty of those words. The question rushes past his lips before he’s even sure he wants to know.

“How do you—”

“You are a _neat freak_ , Steven. I found them there the morning after, and when Sargent McKenzie explained I just… knew.”

“Well, _shit._ ”

“It could’ve happened to anyone, babe.”

“Yeah, but it happened to me.”

“I know.”

A lull stretches between them, but he can’t wait for somebody to figure out what to say, he needs to get moving again. He needs to readjust his view of the events. He needs to put some things in order.

He stands and continues washing the dishes where he left of. Danny observes him from the table, eyes squinted in his direction, following his every move.

“How about,” he starts, once Steve has transferred all the dishes to the drying rack, “when you finish the dishes we go out to the lanai, get drunk and forget this shit happened?”

“Mmm,” he grunts his approval. Forgetting sounds nice.

“It’s settled then.”

“Yeah,” he sighs out.

Danny busies himself grabbing beers out of the fridge and transferring them to a cooler. Danny’s not going for drunk, he’s going for plastered.

“We can’t forget forever, though,” he comments to Danny’s back, trying to push past his disappointment on himself and focusing on what’s to come. “I was planning to use that money for the house renovations.”

“Babe,” he says, in that tone of voice that means to convey ‘no argument allowed’. “We can forget for one afternoon.” He grabs onto the front of his shirt and pulls. “C’mon.”

He goes.

 

**/39**

“Okay, babe,” Danny says as he comes into the room. “Tripler just called.”

He raises his head from his plate, not sure of what he just heard. “ _What?_ ”

Danny’s steps stutter, leaning into the table with one hand, eyeing Steve up and down. He starts again. “I said Tripler just called.”

“Tripler?” He asks for clarification, because why would they call Danny?

“Yes, Tripler. _The hospital?_ They called me, my cell— you following?” Steve just stares at him waiting for Danny to go on, it has been overtly established that Tripler called. “Wait, is it a hearing thing? Or a ‘you being irritated’ thing?”

“Irritated?”

“Yeah. You giving me the face. What’s with the face?”

“I don’t have a face,” he declares.

“Yeah, babe, you do have a face, you have the ‘I’m irritated’ face, the one that also says ‘again, because I get irritated all the time’”

 _Oh,_ so this is how it’s going to go. Fine, _bring it on_.

“I don’t get “ _irritated_ ” all the time,” he makes air quotes around the word just to get Danny going.

“Okay, first of all,” Danny starts, ““ _air quotes_ ” are not befitting of a grown man, don’t ever do that again, especially not in public, it’s just— _don’t_. _Secondly_ –don’t make that face, it’s going to freeze like that, and it’s not your most attractive face- secondly—”

“You already said secondly,” he interrupts, rolling his eyes and making grabby hands at the salt shaker on the opposite side of the table, closer to Danny.

“I know. I _only_ have two things to say,” he states as he pushes the salt shaker closer to Steve. He then walks around the table to the sink and takes a fork from the drying rack, getting dangerously close to Steve’s meal with it.

“But you already said two “ _things_ ” about me,” he makes air quotes again, this time with his own fork, keeping Danny’s paws off his plate in the process. “So, it’s _‘third_ ’, thirdly, third— _whatever_ , it has a three on it.”

“Ah, _no,_ ” Danny argues. “The face freezing, was a spur of the moment thing, I feel like I have to keep reminding you of this, with all the faces you pull. _Also_ , refer to point one, _do not_ with the air quotes. And _secondly_ ,” he gives him a pointed look, scooting closer with his fork, trying for a different angle, “you just proved my point, you get irritated at the most irritating things.”

“Well.” He’s got Danny in the bag. He leans back into his chair and crosses his arms over his chest; the picture definition of smug. “It’s fine to get irritated if they’re irritating things, Danno, it stands to logic.”

“ _No._ No, my friend; they’re irritating to me _after_ you get irritated. You’re the _irritator_ here.”

 _“Irritator?”_ His face aches with the level of contortion he manages for this one.

“Oh, so _that_ you get?” Danny asks, suddenly incredulous, “I tell you to _please change the channel_ and you don’t hear shit. _Steven, use the dishwasher, for Christ’s sakes, that’s what it is for_ , and all I get is silence, but make a word up and suddenly you’re all ears.”

 _“God_ , Danny!! You’re so—!!” He throws up his hands, the tinniest bit annoyed this time. Why does Danny have to be bringing his dish washing habits all the time?

“So what? Huh?” Danny smirks, hands in hips, balancing from side to side, all giddy and happy looking. “I double dare you to finish that sentence.”

Steve chuckles at the scene, it has been a while since Danny and he bantered over nothing in particular. He smiles a goofy grin at his friend, partner and lover. He loves this man.

“Just tell me the original message, please. I’m _begging_ you,” he places both his hands under his chin in a praying position to emphasise the point.

“Suuuure,” Danny stretches the word, smirk growing wider. “If you agree with me that you get irritated easily.”

Steve crosses his arms over his chest again, there’s a limit to the amount of winning he can give to Danny in these arguments. It’s not wise to create jurisprudence over their true and tried procedures. He never stops smiling, though, because he’s deeply in love with this man, even his most _irritating_ traits.

“Look, I’m being magnanimous here,” Danny teases, “I could just call it how it is, and say you’re _sensitive_ ,” Steve huffs in response, puffing his chest a little, “but I know for a _fact_ that’s going to start a whole different set of arguments so…?”

Steve pinches his nose and chuckles again, looking up at Danny. “When did we start this?” Steve points between them. “I thought you were the sensitive and I was a Neanderthal, I liked those arguments better.”

Danny snorts a laugh, casually leaning into Steve’s side and stealing a huge chunk of omelette from his plate. _Sneaky bastard_.

At least his lover has the decency to swallow before he says, “So, do you want to know why Tripler called for or what?”

“Yes, please, since this conversation started.”

“See? it _was_ an irritation thing, what was it? That they called me and not you?” Steve gestures with his hand for him to go on, as if saying ‘ _I’ve been waiting for ages, this is the last stretch, don’t flake on me now,_ ’ dropping the previous argument entirely. “Okay, okay,” Danny unfolds a paper from his shirt pocket. “Friday afternoon, three pee-em, audiology laboratory, they’re getting your ears tested. Four thirty pee-em, appointment with Dr Lee to review the results.” He looks up from the note, gauging Steve’s reaction.

“ _Oh_.” He had forgotten about the follow up examination to come. In some level, he knows he needs to be tested, to be accurately assessed before he’s even allowed to touch his desk again. And next Thursday marks the twenty-first day since his injury. He can’t help to frown and let his mind wander into several paths at the same time, one fractionally bleaker than the other.

“Yeah, I know, me too.” Danny grabs his shoulder with his free hand, grounding him. “Moment of truth, babe, you ready?”

He swallows thickly against the lump in his throat. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

**/40**

“You sure you don’t want me there?” Danny bites his bottom lip, sure tell-tale he wishes he could say more about the subject. He won’t though; he’s hoping Steve comes forward on his own.

“I think it’s easier that way, Danno… for me.”

Danny worries over his bottom lip some more and nods absentmindedly, still not convinced; he wants to be there to support him, Steve knows and understands it, but this, he needs to do alone.

“Just so we are clear,” he adds, “you mean just the test, right?”

Steve is floored. “Danno…” He whines. It’s not easy to say ‘no’ to Danny as a general rule, but when he knows Danny’s been biting his nails about this since they were told this test was crucial to figure out what came after, recovery-wise… (and so has he, for that matter).

Danny’s shoulders sag, but he covers with a reassuring smile and a squeeze on his shoulder; a surrender of sorts. A way of saying, ‘I won’t personally contribute to your nerves.’

“Okay, I get it.  I do.”

“Okay,” he exhales, readying himself.

“Just clear me on something—” the tone alone had Steve rolling his eyes— “barging is not acceptable either, yeah?”

He shakes his head and walks into the testing room.

The audiometry booth feels small and constrictive. It’s about a metre and a half wide and about a metre long. If he raises his elbows, he could touch the ceiling. There’s soundproofing material on every wall, and a small window to his left. On the sill of the window, there’s two hooks; a pair of huge headphones hanging from the first hook (the kind Danny has stashed at the bottom drawer of his desk, for the times he’s doing paperwork and needs the musical pick-me-up), and some sort of stick with a red button on top, from the other.

‘ _Very Top Gun_ ,’ a tinny voice in his head says; a voice that sounds a lot like Danny’s.

“Commander McGarrett, my name is Lani; I’ll be conducting the hearing test today.” Steve nods in understanding. “It’s got three parts, and they’re all done inside the booth. Are you claustrophobic or do have any problems in small spaces?”

“Ah, no. Not really.” Lani must sense some hesitancy in his answer, because she eyes him for about a second too long, the kind of stare that aims to scan your mental state in one profound soul-searching look.

“If at any time you feel sick, or like you can’t stand it, just open the door and we’ll take it from there. It’s not a problem if you need to take breaks between the stages of the test. It will not invalidate the results.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” he shuffles on his feet, unable to tell her he’s edgy about the results, not about going into a miniscule area, he’s lay in wait in even smaller crawl spaces for operations, waiting for the right moment to engage. The cubicle seems luxurious in comparison.

“You’re going to step into the booth for me, sir, and put on the headphones. A series of tones will be played first on your left and then on your right ear, whenever you hear something, no matter how quiet it is, you press the button, sir. Understand?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

The chair is surprisingly comfortable, and he has enough room to stretch his legs a bit in front of him until the tip of his boots rest against the frame of the door. Lani reaches inside to help him adjust the headphones until they’re snug against his skull. He can hear himself breathing and every other movement he makes, including the chaffing of his clothes against the cords of the headphones.

He sees some movement on his left, the green scrubs of Lani blurring past the glass pane. A moment later she’s back with a binder in her hands, she sits at the sound console, facing him. She looks up and motions to her own ears and then to Steve.

“Commander,” she says into a microphone and her voice comes loud and clear into his headphones. “We’re about to begin, please note there’s a small microphone to your left, so should you have any question or need to stop, you can always tell me, I’ll be here.” She puts on a set of headphones of her own, much smaller and cheaper looking than the ones he’s using.

He gives her a thumbs-up.

She fiddles with a couple of knobs on the console and then signals him the test is about to begin. _In hree, two, one, go_.

He hears nothing for a good thirty seconds, until a faint, high-pitched bleep registers on his left ear, like from a distance, and he pushes the button. The next bleep is a little bit stronger, then nothing for a couple more seconds, then another faint bleep and then nothing again. His odds of coming back to what passes as normal in his life, get slimmer and slimmer once he figures out those irregular stretches of time in between beeps are in fact _missed_ beeps.

 

**/40.2**

Danny stands like a spring as soon as he sees him walking out of the lab, apprehension written all over his face.

“Hey, babe, how did it go?”

Steve shrugs his shoulders, reining in his own uneasiness, they can’t both freak out at the same time; a cardinal rule in their partnership.

“I don’t know yet, she told me the results would go straight to Dr Lee’s office, he’s got me scheduled in an hour.”

“But the tech didn’t say anything?”

Steve shakes his head. _Oh_ , he had _asked_ , but Lani evaded him like a pro and prompted him to ask all further questions at his appointment with Dr Lee, and then showed him to the door.

“ _Damn_ , not even a nudge or a wink?”

 _If only_ , he scoffs mentally. “No, Danny,” he retorts, “she didn’t.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” Danny backs off with raised hands, but then turns around to gather his stuff biting his lip as he does it. 

Dammit, he didn’t mean to snap at Danny. He debates apologising, but then Danny turns back to him again, a certain glint in his eyes and he says, “You think she could give me a test too?” _Ah_ , he’s switching tactics. “Because my partner at work has been firing like he’s paid by the bullet for the past 6 years. I feel like I should check everything’s in working order, you know?” As far as ribbing goes, it falls flat by their standards, but he appreciates the gesture, he knows Danny’s been worried about this too.

“Oh, I wish I were paid by the number of words I have to listen to on any given day I’m around you. I would get paid a lot more than by shots fired,” he comments. _Yes, Danny, I’m worried too_.

“Oh, so you admit you fire an obscene amount of ammo?” Danny grins, gearing up for verbal jujitsu as a distraction.

“I admit nothing. C’mon, let’s get out of here.” He slaps him lightly on the chest and Danny grabs his hand, keeping it there.

“Wanna go for a coffee or something while we wait?”

“Actually, you know what?” He gets an idea. “I want to tell you something, let’s grab something from the vending machine and take the long road to Dr Lee’s office.”

“Gee, once a cheapskate, always a cheapskate. The cafeteria is right there,” Danny gestures to the end of the hall.

“I thought you hated hospital food.”

“Look, coffee’s gonna suck no matter where we go in here, but in there,” he points down the hall emphatically, “I can at least _not-enjoy_ my drink with the air conditioning on.”

“Fine,” he rolls his eyes, but starts walking anyway, letting Danny scramble to fall in step.

There’s not a lot to choose from, so he asks for two cappuccinos and sighs inwardly about the lack of decaf available. He doesn’t need a caffeine rush right now.

He sets the paper cups on the table and dumps a handful of sugar packets in front of Danny. “Here, your cheapskate boyfriend just bought you coffee, you’re welcome.”

“Yeah, bring that trick to a bar party and then we’re talking.” He rips the first packet of sugar and dumps it into his coffee. “How come you always get milky coffee?”

“Well, if you must know, I like coffee.”

“And?” Danny gestures with his non-dominant hand as if to say _‘those words? Keep them coming’_ and adds another packet of sugar.

“ _Aaaand_ ,” Steve concedes, “my stomach doesn’t like coffee unless it has milk in it.” He eyes Danny with as little judgment as he can, hoping he has a good dental plan; that’s a lot of sugar in one tiny little cup.

Danny takes a sip and some foam ends up on his upper lip. He licks his lips slowly, savouring his drink. “How come I didn’t know this?” He ponders aloud, scrunching up his nose. “I mean, I’ve seen you put butter in it… suppose it still softens the blow to your stomach lining, even if it’s gross…” Then, looking at Steve he says, “What did you want to talk about, babe?”

Steve fiddles with his cup, trying to find the words, he doesn’t have anything prepared; this was just a spur of the moment thing. A lot of that happening lately.

Okay, straight line is always the fastest way to get from point A to point B. “I want to adopt Nahele,” he gushes in a rush, squeezing his cup too tight, some of the liquid sloshing onto the table.

It takes a second for Danny to register what Steve just said, but when it does… Steve’s glad he was studying his boyfriend’s face. Danny gives him the most adoring smile he’s ever seen on any other person’s face. It stretches in slow motion from the middle of his lips; all the way to the corners of his mouth that go up-up-up until the delight reflected in them lights up his eyes and softens his face.

“Yeah?” Danny breathes out in a single breath, like somebody just clapped it out of him. He reaches for his hand and holds it, squeezing lightly. It feels good. “God, babe, that’s a huge step—”

“I mean, I haven’t looked into it, I don’t even know if I can—” He starts rattling off, he’s thought about it enough to know he wants it, but he hasn’t gone past that, too afraid to find out if this is one thing he won’t be qualified for.

“Babe,” Danny cuts him off, sandwiching his hand in between his, “whatever you need, you’ve got my support. Always.”

His stomach flutters and a pleasant warm liquid feeling spreads throughout his body. He wants to pull Danny over the table and kiss the daylights out of him, but he settles for dragging his chair closer and pressing his thigh against Danny’s, resting their joined hands in his lap under the table.

**/40.3**

“I’ll be there,” Danny says, pointing towards the waiting room, a reassuring smile just for him. Steve nods and smiles back, having talked with Danny about his intention of adopting Nahele had smothered down his nerves in a way he didn’t think it was possible.

He takes a deep breath before he pushes the door to Dr Lee’s office, readying himself for the worst, just in case.

Dr Lee welcomes him with a firm handshake and asks him to sit down.

“Commander, good to see you, I’ve got your results back.” He waves a nondescript folder in front of him, opening it and smoothing down the pages.

“Okay, doc, I’m all ears.” Dr Lee’s eyebrows go up and there’s a faint twitch under his eye, the only sign the good doctor might have found it funny.

The doctor stands from his desk and takes out the otoscope from a drawer in his desk.

“I’ll look at your ears first, Commander, and then we’ll talk about the results, alright?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, hop on the seat for me, please.” Steve does, eager to get to the results part.

Dr Lee presses the otoscope into his left ear, tugging the earlobe to make it a tight fit into the ear canal. Steve had recently gotten intimately acquainted with all things hearing loss over the internet, trying to absorb the last miniscule detail, until Danny had come down, padding barefoot on the stairs, shaken his head and dragged himself to his side, commandeering the laptop and putting on some old time cartoons in just under a minute. Danny was getting a lot better with technology these days.

The doctor shifts sides and repeats the action on his right ear.

“Oh, this is healing quite nicely. I can see you’ve been taking better care of yourself, Commander, well done,” he congratulates, like he’s some petulant child in need of encouragement. And the doctor must be reading his mind, because then he adds, “I’m glad you’ve taken responsibility for your health.” He puts away the otoscope, discarding the head into a small bucket of multiple objects to be sent to sterilisation. Then, he takes his stethoscope from the same drawer where he put away the other instrument and proceeds to auscultate him; he taps on his chest, and checks his throat.

“Pain?”

“No, sir.”

The doc palpates his glands, “Fever?”

“No, sir.”

“Any discomfort?”

“No, sir,” he grinds out.

“Easy, we’re almost done.” Steve forces himself to relax against the back of the chair.

“I take it your hearing has improved?” Dr Lee asks, resting back on his leg, the other tucked against the bottom of the examination chair.

“Yes, sir, gradually. I’ve started to hear some things, I understand better too,” he motions to his ear, like that would help clarify what he’s trying to say, his mind is already scrutinising his memory of taking the test and Dr Lee’s face when he referred to the results, trying to glean something off it, to gauge how he fared. “When people talk I mean,” he adds, distracted by his own calculations.

“Alright, then, let’s see about those results then,” Dr Lee signals for him to hop out of the chair and to get back to the desk. _Finally._

“It looks good, better than I hoped,” Dr Lee smooths the pages again, pressing firmly on them. Steve nods, focusing into the doc’s words. “These lines represent your hearing; blue exes are your right ear, and red circles represent your left. I’ll start with your left ear, and then move to the right.” Dr Lee turns around the folder and points at the red graphs lines with the back of a pen. “All of your low-pitched ranges look good, around the middle range your start showing the first indications of loss, right here from a thousand to four-thousand hertz,” he circles the area with the back of the pen, “you have a steady loss of twenty decibels, taking a dive to forty decibels at six-thousand hertz, and then back again to thirty decibels at eight-thousand hertz. Now, that dive you see here is very particular and it’s not very common in general population, though we see it a lot in combatant patients, its technical name is aural scotoma. This is probably a leftover from being exposed to gun fire over an extended period without proper ear protection,” (an ambush in the middle of _nowhereville_ comes to mind, he lost his kit, his gun and almost his life, his ears had been stuck into an unpleasant ringing for a week afterwards, but he had to push through until he could get himself and his unit to the exfil point), “whereas the steady loss of twenty decibels might be from the explosion or age related loss. In any case it’s a lot better than what I was expecting.”

Steve relaxes his shoulders a fraction, he can go on no problem with one less-than-totally-fucked ear; he can still listen to Danny’s rants with one ear, even if it’s a shame not to have it in stereo, but he can live with this.

“How you doing there, Commander?”

“I’m fine, sir, what about my right ear?” He readjusts his posture, trying to convey with his body he needs the doctor to keep going.

“Alright. You have a gradual loss that starts at fifteen decibels on the low-pitched range and rises steadily to forty decibels at the high frequencies.” The line had a gentle slope that increased the closer it got to the higher frequencies. “Good news here is that most day-to-day sounds and conversations are centred between the ranges of two hundred and fifty to six-thousand hertz, so you should be able to pick up most noises and conversations. This is the more typical hearing loss that comes with age, though in your case has to do with the explosion you were involved in.” The doc scoots back in his chair, giving him some space to process the news. Steve swallows around a lump in his throat, but remains steady and calm, focusing on his unfucked ear, on the possibilities, on the fact he won’t have to think what it would be like to never hear Charlie again, or forget Mary’s voice. “Any questions so far?” the doc asks.

“Do I need hearing aids?”

“Not yet, Commander, no. In fact, I think your hearing might still improve a little after your eardrum’s finished healing, not by much, I’m not trying to get your hopes up, but up to ten decibels on the lower frequencies would be my estimate.”

Steve didn’t know what to think just now, his mind racing furiously through veteran affairs rulings and other assorted information. Would he be medically discharged from the Navy?

“I understand this is a lot to take in, but what I’m saying, Commander, is that you have a very good prognosis, provided you keep taking care of yourself. I don’t know what specific standards the police have for this sort of thing, but as far as the diagnostic criterion used by the military forces goes, you’re fit for active duty, presenting with low to moderate hearing loss.” Bless Dr Lee’s tendency to read his mind.

“That’s umm…” _a relief, actually_.  “So I can just go back to five-oh?”

“Well, no, Commander, you’re still on medical leave for the next two weeks,” Dr Lee smiles, “and I’m not clearing you for field operations until that eardrum is completely healed, there are too many variables you cannot control for. Also, how’s the dizziness? You haven’t talked about it yet.”

Steve has to remind himself it’s a good thing your treating doctor is thorough. “Sometimes when I’m in noisy places I get this feeling like vertigo, but not as intense, like I’m dizzy, but not so much I’ll end up falling.”

“Ah, yes, it should go away over time, give it one more month and if it doesn’t stop, come back, but it’s basically your brain adjusting to the change of volume, so sometimes the lack of sound or the difference of volume in between ears gets translated as movement, like a pseudo Doppler effect. It might also be damaged—” he grabs his pen an scrawls ‘stereocilia’ on it— “the little hairs inside the middle ear, they might be bent and signal your brain there’s movement when you’re not moving. Bear in mind it’s been getting better every week since the traumatic injury and I find no reason for it not to continue.”

“How will it affect my job?”

“Annoyingly, mostly. Though in terms of tactical readiness, I would recommend training both in closed quarters and open spaces, to gauge how different those experiences are for you now. One of my colleagues, Dr Sheppard, is conducting an experiment on how soldiers are affected by hearing loss during operations in different scenarios, so if you’re willing to volunteer some of your data, _and time_ , for her to further her research, I’m sure she would be glad to give you a couple of hours on the field and some simulations of combat typical sounds, so you can have a broader hearing experience on that front. Other than that, same recommendations as always, use earplugs when you think it’s going to get loud, make sure you don’t expose yourself to loud noises over extended periods of time, and until I tell you to, you do not get that ear wet. Now, please bear in mind, that until that eardrum is healed I don’t want you using earplugs, at all; if you do, they’ll stretch your ear canal and it might affect the healing, so stick with the cotton balls in the shower for now.”

Steve reclines back into his chair, too many ideas and emotions running through him at once. Three weeks ago, he thought his world had turned upside down irrevocably. His hearing was shot, he didn’t know how Danny had fared after the blast, and nobody would tell him anything. For the most part it was all pitiful looks and sympathy for the fallen leader. Then, sick leave was brutal, too many things he couldn’t do the same as before, always tired, his head hazy from the meds and the concussion, and for a while there, he had been stir-crazy and climbing the walls, desperate for something to do, to feel useful (lest he go insane), quickly realising his life revolved so much around work, he hadn’t taken the time to appreciate everything else in his life.

But then, as the adrenaline and the shock started to wind down, he found a part of himself he hadn’t explored in depth before, he found himself longing for the little talks with Charlie about sea-creatures (even the made-up ones), to help Grace and Nahele with homework, to spend time with Danno doing the most mundane and boring tasks, like laundry or ironing. He realised he had a much larger world than he had ever hoped for before, than he had _allowed himself_ to hope for.

“Alright, sir, I can do that.”

Dr Lee gathers the folder in his hand, putting all the papers in order before handing them to Steve. “Here you go, Commander, your copy. I’ll forward you Dr Sheppard’s information.” He stands up and offers his hand to Steve. He gives it a firm shake and turns to leave the office.

As he walks down the hall to Danny, relief courses through his veins, he feels giddy with it. When he looks up around the corner, he sees Danny lazily paging through a magazine. He takes a deep breath and considers Danny’s bored face, right there and then it hits him, he’s not afraid about what might happen anymore (and isn’t that the word he should’ve been using from the start?) because everything of importance is right where it should be.

 

 

 

 

[ ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/3226629)

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I want to thank _Ms. Three_ for choosing my story to illustrate it and then after talking with me and reading a few scenes, doing two beautiful illustrations for this fic (and respective banners). She's sweet, she's kind and very interesting to talk to, please go visit her [tumblr](http://ms-three.tumblr.com/) and her [AO3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/3226629). And [here is her masterpost](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10526784) so you can go shower in kudos and love!!
> 
> Also, I want to thank my beta and friend, [Ilmare_Ilse](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilmare_Ilse/), who asked me about the H50 Big Bang and when she realised I had already joined, immediately offered to read my stuff and cheer me on, which she did and helped me keep these characters in line and the commas in place. Thank you!
> 
> At last, thank you, dear reader, for getting this far and taking an interest in my story, really hoped you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! <3


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